ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 237 . . .
THE play may be named Othello but Shakespeare’s title character has 237 fewer lines than his traitorous standard bearer Iago (1,097 lines to Othello’s 860). Only three Shakespeare characters have more lines: Hamlet, Richard III and Henry V. A BUYER on eBay paid £237 for some water left in a plastic cup that Elvis Presley had drunk from at a concert in North Carolina in 1977. Fan Wade Jones, who was 13, saw Presley drink from it and a guard gave it to him as a souvenir. He kept the water in a freezer until 1985, then a sealed vial. Wade, now 40, sold the water but still has the cup.
THERE ARE 129 DAYS LEFT
QUEEN Victoria celebrated her golden jubilee over two days 129 years ago, at the age of 68. She began the first day with breakfast under the trees at Frogmore, the resting place of her husband, Prince Albert, near Windsor Castle, before a banquet at Buckingham Palace. On the second day, she led a procession and, in the evening, put on a gown embroidered with silver roses, thistles and shamrocks for a banquet and was then wheeled into the garden to watch the fireworks. ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE’S first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study In Scarlet, was published 129 years ago. It was the first work of detective fiction to have a magnifying glass used as a tool of investigation. AMERICAN technology giant Apple paid just £12.9 million in UK corporation tax last year. It generated enough profits worldwide to pay that bill in just over two hours.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
RUPERT GRINT, 28. The Essex-born actor won the role of Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films by dressing as his female drama teacher and performing a rap explaining why he was suitable for the role. It began: ‘My name is Rupert Grint, I hope you like this and don’t think I stink.’ The ten-year-old had been in only one school play. PAULO COELHO, 69. The Brazilian author’s novel The Alchemist has been translated into more than 80 languages. His parents were so concerned about his stated dream of being a writer that they put him in a mental institution three times. He wrote a book about it, Veronika Decides To Die, 35 years later.
BORN ON THIS DAY
GRAHAM SUTHERLAND (1903-1980). The English artist was commissioned to paint Sir Winston Churchill’s portrait as an 80th birthday gift from MPs and Lords. Churchill said it was ‘filthy’ and made him look ‘half-witted’. The whole family hated it, and his wife’s loyal secretary, Grace Hamblin, organised for it to be taken from Chartwell in dead of night and burned, which Sutherland called ‘an act of vandalism’. WILLIAM WILBERFORCE (1759-1833). Born in Hull, he became an MP at 21 and played a key role in the abolition of the slave trade. However, a 2015 survey revealed that 11 per cent of British people think he, rather than William Wallace, led the Scots against the English at the end of the 13th century.
ON AUGUST 24
In 1967, two penguins from Chessington Zoo were taken by their keepers to join skaters at London’s Streatham ice-rink to cool off as the city sweltered in 27c. In 1981, Mark David Chapman was sentenced to 20 years-to-life for shooting dead Beatle John Lennon outside his Dakota apartment building in New York City.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
It’s not that I’m afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens Woody Allen, filmmaker and comedian
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT’S a polygon? A dead parrot.