ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 205 OF 2016
At just 2.05m (6ft 9in) long, Ebenezer Place in Wick, Caithness, is the shortest street in the world. It has just one address, the front door of No 1 Bistro, part of Mackays Hotel. tHE London Philharmonic Orchestra recorded 205 national anthems ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games. After completing the 50-hour recording marathon, conductor Philip sheppard said: ‘I’ll be perfectly happy not to hear another anthem for a long time.’ ROBERt Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen, the German chemist behind the Bunsen burner, was born 205 years ago. the scientist refused to take a patent out on the invention because he did not feel he should make a profit from science, in the pursuit of which he lost an eye in a laboratory blast.
THERE ARE 161 DAYS LEFT
Wu ZuyOu, of China, set a world record in 2011 for the largest balloon inflated in a minute with air blown through the tear ducts of both eyes. the diameter was 16.1 cm (6.33 in). IN 161 BC, the Roman Republic passed a law limiting chicken consumption to one per meal — and only if the bird had not been specially fattened — over fears of moral decay caused by excessive luxury.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAvID EssEX, 69. the EastEnders star and exteen idol (pictured in his heyday) became a father for the fifth time in 2014 with his third wife susan, who is 26 years his junior and close to the same age as his eldest child, verity. His career was nearly cut short in the 1980s when he hitchhiked in south America. ‘It was only when I got to Rio, and they showed me the car was packed with drugs, that I realised they were smugglers. If the police had searched the car, I’d have almost certainly ended up in prison.’ MONICA LEWINsKy, 43. the former White House intern and ‘that woman’ with whom President Bill Clinton insisted under oath that he ‘did not have sexual relations’. During the scandal, she learned to knit to calm her nerves.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MICHAEL FOOt (1913-2010). the Labour leader from 1980 until the 1983 general election, when the party won its lowest share of the vote since 1918. His successor Neil Kinnock observed in his obituary that ‘he was a lousy dancer and a truly appalling singer’. RAyMOND CHANDLER (1888-1959). the British-American crime author and screenwriter penned his first novel, the Big sleep, aged 50. Working with Alfred Hitchcock on the film strangers On A train did not go well. the pair fell out, Chandler called the director a ‘fat b ***** d’, left the movie and later lambasted the final script as ‘a flabby mass of cliches’.
ON JULY 23rd . . .
IN 1904, the invention of the ice cream cone was claimed by Charles E. Menches at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in st. Louis. He is said to have made it out of pastry. IN 1986, Prince Andrew married sarah Ferguson. In 2001, the Duchess of york told a u.s. magazine the marriage began to fail within a week due to Andrew’s naval duties.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
PerhaPs a man’s character is like a tree and his reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it, the tree is the real thing. Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. president (1809-1865)
JOKE OF THE DAY
tWO cannibals are eating a clown and one says to the other: ‘Does this taste funny to you?’