ON THIS DAY
October 21, 2015
IT’S DAY 294 OF 2015
AFTER an Easter TV advertisement showed Delia Smith rustling up gammon with salted caramel crackling, sales of ham joints rose by 294 per cent in 2012.
THE office of Prime Minister of Great Britain is 294 years old — the first to hold it was Robert Walpole. One of 19 children, he was educated at Eton and was said to have a coarse and vulgar wit ‘of which he was too free for a man of his station’.
There are 294 different types of turtle, including the African spurred tortoise, with its 150-year lifespan, and the Asian softshelled turtle, which can grow up to 6ft wide.
THE Bible’s shortest book, the Third Epistle of St John, has 294 words in 14 verses.
THERE ARE 71 DAYS LEFT
THERE are 53 members of the Commonwealth of Nations, but 71 teams take part in the Commonwealth Games. This is because some countries enter more than one team — including the United Kingdom, with England, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales competing as separate nations.
THE most lucrative speed camera in Britain last year was on Newport Road in Cardiff, trapping an average of 71 drivers a day and raking in around £800,000 every six months.
THE new 5p charge for carrier bags in supermarkets is expected to lead to a 71 per cent reduction in the number of plasticcarriers used.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KIM KARDASHIAN, 35 (right). The reality TV star is married to her third husband, rapper Kanye West. Her second marriage, to basketball player Kris Humphries, lasted just 72 days before she filed for divorce.
CARRIE FISHER, 59, daughter of singer Eddie Fisher and actress Debbie Reynolds, will be forever known as Princess Leia in Star Wars. What’s less well known is that Paul Simon wrote the song Heart And Bones about her before their brief marriage in the Eighties.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, 66. As a younger man, the prime minister of Israel served in the Israeli military in an Elite Special Services unit and was shot while rescuing passengers and crew during the hijacking of Sabena Flight 571 in Tel Aviv in 1972.
GEOFFREY BOYCOTT, 75. The former Yorkshire and England cricketer, now a sports commentator, lived with his mother until the age of 38.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ALFRED NOBEL (1833-96). The Swedish chemist’s fortune was used to establish the Nobel Prize. His brother Emil was killed in a nitro-glycerine explosion in 1864, prompting him to perfect an explosive substance that was safe to handle. Within three years he had created dynamite.
LEONARD ROSSITER (1926-84). The actor, best known for his roles as Rigsby in Rising Damp (right) and Reggie Perrin in The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin, died of a heart attack while waiting to go on stage at the Lyric theatre in London during a performance of the play Loot.
ON OCTOBER 21 . . .
IN 1858, Orpheus In The Underworld, Offenbach’s operetta that contains the cancan tune — properly known as the Infernal Galop — was first staged in Paris.
IN 1986, Australian Nicholas Feteris was fined $100 for ‘parachuting without a permit’ after he jumped from the arm holding the torch on the Statue of Liberty.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Whenshesaidshewasapproaching40,Icouldn’thelpwonderingfromwhatdirection.
Bob Hope (1903-2003)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a Roman with a cold? JuliusSneezer!