ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 271 OF 2015
IF YOU were driving 60mph in a car, it would take 271 years and 221 days to get to Mars from Earth. HOPES of an oil boom around Gatwick Airport were raised this summer after oil giant Schlumberger estimated there could be 271 million barrels of oil per square mile in the Weald Basin. However, it is unclear how much is recoverable. ELECTRICIAN Pierre Le Guennec and his wife Danielle were prosecuted after hiding 271 works of art by Pablo Picasso, worth £50 million, in their garage for 40 years. The couple were given two-year suspended sentences this March. Ironically, Pierre had had been hired by Picasso to install burglar alarms at his house.
THERE ARE 94 DAYS LEFT
THE arrows used by English longbowmen at Agincourt were a ‘clothyard’ long, about 94cm (just over 3ft). THE patriarch of the world’s biggest family, 70-year-old Ziona Chana, lives with 39 wives and 94 children in a 100-room mansion in remote north-east India.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
NAOMI WATTS, 47 (pictured). The Hollywood actress was born in Kent, but she spent time as a child with her grandparents in Anglesey. She can still pronounce with ease the name of the Welsh town where they lived: Llan fairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. JON SNOW, 68. The C4 news presenter was once on board Idi Amin’s private jet when the Ugandan dictator fell asleep with a loaded gun in his holster. Snow says he considered assassinating the sleeping tyrant but ‘cowardice’ made him back down. BRIGITTE BARDOT, 81. The scene when the archetypal sex kitten shot to fame — dancing barefoot on a table to the tango in the film And God Created Woman — remains one of the most titillating in French cinema.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CONFUCIUS (551-479BC). The teachings of the ancient philosopher still influence behaviour in China thanks to enduring aphorisms that include, ‘What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.’ BEN E. KING (1938-2015). The singer said his most enduring hit, Stand By Me, was not immediately popular with its producer, Jerry Wexler, ‘because we’d gone into overtime in the studio with an expensive orchestra.’ John Lennon covered it — as did boxer Muhammad Ali. THOMAS CRAPPER (18361910, pictured). The Yorkshireborn plumber helped to popularise and improve the flushing toilet. The word crap comes from medieval Latin and originally meant chaff or rubbish. His name is just a ‘lucky coincidence’.
ON SEPTEMBER 28 . . .
IN 1894, Michael Marks, a Jewish immigrant from the Russian region Belarus, and Tom Spencer, a cashier from Yorkshire, signed a partnership in Manchester to open a Penny Bazaar in Cheetham Hill. Marks & Spencer was born. IN 1066, Duke William, later known as William the Conqueror, and his army landed at Pevensey Bay in East Sussex. IN 1928, after an amendment to the Dangerous Drugs Act 1925, the use of cannabis became illegal in the UK. IN 1990, at the first ever Robot Olympics, held in Glasgow, the eight-legged ‘Penelope’ from Edinburgh University won the flat race for robots without wheels, moving at a speed of 0.13 metres per second.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
If I had all the money I’ve spent on drink .. . I’d spend it on drink.
Humourist Vivian Stanshall (19 3-1995)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY don’t bikes stand up on their own? They are usually two tyred.