ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 320 OF 2015
TODAY there are 320 cricket clubs in Afghanistan. The game was first played by British soldiers in the capital, Kabul, in 1839 and, despite being banned by the Taliban at the turn of the millennium, is flourishing once again. IN 1997, snooker’s Ronnie O’Sullivan took just 320 seconds to achieve the fastest-ever 147 maximum break — an average of 8.8 seconds a shot. THE North Atlantic jet stream, a west-to-east ribbon of very strong wind, hits speeds of up to 320 km/hr (200mph). It is particularly useful to aircraft travelling from the U.S. and Canada to Europe because it can be ‘ridden’ to improve journey times.
THERE ARE 45 DAYS LEFT
THE longest word in the English language —pneu mono ultra microscopic si li co volcano conios is—has 45 letters and is a lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust. Some dictionaries don’t carry it, however, as the word — referred to as ‘P45’ — was invented in 1935 by Everett M. Smith, president of the U.S. National Puzzlers’ League, to draw attention to the ever-increasing length of medical terms. THE Royal Mail delivers an average of 45 items every month to each of the 29 million addresses in the UK. THE Mediterranean island of Ibiza has an average of just 45 rainy days a year. London has 107.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, 38. The U.S. actress (right), who appeared in the Batman film The Dark Knight, was given the name ‘Margalit’, meaning ‘pearl’ in Hebrew. She only discovered this when sorting out papers ahead of her wedding to actor Peter Sarsgaard. COMEDIAN Griff Rhys Jones, 62. A keen sailor, he and wife Jo had to jump into sharkinfested waters in 2009 after a yacht they were sailing on near the Galapagos caught fire. They were in the water for five minutes before being rescued by a nearby boat. FRANK BRUNO, 54. The British boxer won the WBC heavyweight title in 1995, but lost it six months later to Mike Tyson. He had a Top 40 chart hit with a reworking of the classic song Eye Of The Tiger.
BORN ON THIS DAY
OSWALD MOSLEY (1896-1980). The aristocrat founded the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932 and was interned during World War II. Before the war, Mosley made William Joyce the BUF’s head of propaganda. Joyce later became the voice of Lord Haw Haw, whose radio show was beamed to the UK from Nazi Germany. EDDIE CHAPMAN (1914-1997). The exploits of the soldier, bank robber, and wartime double agent were made into a 1966 film, The Triple Cross, starring Christopher Plummer and Yul Brynner. After the war he set up a health farm in Hertfordshire.
ON NOVEMBER 16 . . .
IN 1841, Napoleon Guerin, of New York, patented the first life jacket, filled with cork. IN 1848, Polish composer Frederic Chopin, dying of tuberculosis, gave his final public performance at the Guildhall, London. In just over six months in Britain, he gave more concerts in his last months than he had in the previous ten years in Paris. IN 1936, a constitutional crisis began when Edward VIII told Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin he intended to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson (right), despite her two divorces. IN 1938, Spurs footballer Willie Hall set a record for the fastest England hat-trick with three goals against Ireland in just over three minutes.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I’m not saying my mother didn’t like me, but she did spend a lot of time looking for loopholes in my birth certificate.
Comedian Les Dawson (1931-93)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WE WERE watching DVDs back to back over the weekend. I’m so happy I ended up being the one who got to sit facing the TV.