ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 240 OF 2016
THE world’s oceans contain a nonillion (1 followed by 30 zeros) microbes. Combined, they weigh the same as 240 billion African elephants. Sometimes fishermen are unable to lift their nets because they contain more bacteria than shrimp. AFTEr Albert Einstein’s death, his brain was removed by a pathologist, initially without his family’s knowledge. It was cut into 240 blocks, which were pickled and sent to various scientists. Many of the segments were stored for 20 years in a box marked ‘Costa Cider’ in Wichita, Kansas. THE oldest oil wells date from AD 347, when the Chinese drilled to depths of up to 240 m (787ft) by attaching primitive drill bits to pipes made from bamboo.
THERE ARE 126 DAYS LEFT
THE alphabet of the !Xóõ language of Botswana has 126 consonants and 83 ‘click’ sounds. Most speakers live in and around the Kalahari desert, with a few hundred in Namibia. POP star Taylor Swift (right) is the highestearning celebrity in the world, making an estimated £126 million in the 12 months to June this year, according to Forbes magazine. Adele was in second place with £60 million, followed by Madonna on £57 million.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JEANETTE WINTErSON, 57, author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. She was adopted at six months old and her strict adoptive mother didn’t allow any books in the house that weren’t religious texts. She ran away from home at 16 and for a while lived in a borrowed Mini. rEECE SHEArSMITH, 47. The Hull-born actor and star of black comedies The League Of Gentlemen, Psychoville and Inside No 9. His most treasured possession is the left leg of the Wicker Man (from the 1973 film): ‘Sir Christopher Lee (a star of the movie) signed it for me when I went to dinner with him.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
LyNDON BAINES JOHNSON (1908-1973). According to one story, the 36th U.S. president relieved himself against the leg of his secret service agent while standing at a urinal. ‘That’s all right, son,’ LBJ is alleged to have said. ‘It’s my prerogative.’ CHArLES rolls (18771910, right). The Londonborn engineer co-founded rolls-royce alongside Henry royce. Educated at Eton, his childhood nickname was Dirty rolls because of his obsessive interest in engines. He would sleep under his cars to avoid paying hotel bills. He died aged 32, the first Briton killed in an accident involving a powered aircraft, when the tail of his plane broke off during a flying display in Bournemouth.
ON AUGUST 27 . . .
IN 1950, with a programme broadcast from Calais, the BBC transmitted the first live TV pictures across the Channel. IN 1967, Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles and Cilla Black, was found dead in his London home at the age of 32. Next to his body was Black’s contract for a BBC variety show, Cilla, that she had been unsure about signing. The programme was to be the start of her glittering TV career. IN 1979, Lord Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin, and three others were killed by an IrA bomb on his boat off Co. Sligo.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Hard knocks have a place and value, but hard thinking goes farther in less time.
Henry Ford, U.S. industrialist (1863-1947)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT did the bald man say when he got a comb for his birthday? Thanks, I’ll never part with it.