ON THIS DAY
April 1, 2017
APRIL 1, 1949
MEMBERS of the catering executive of British Railways were quizzed about the loss of five million teacups and saucers a year by theft and breakages. The chairman, Lord Inman, declared: ‘Unfortunately, many apparently respectable people steal railway cups. We are, therefore, introducing papiermache cups and have ordered 500,000.’
APRIL 1, 1965
THE BBC hoaxed thousands of viewers last night — two hours before April Fool’s Day — by persuading them to smell their TV sets. A professor on BBC2’s science programme Horizon told viewers to sniff the screen as he fed coffee beans and later an onion into equipment.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
AnnIE nIGHTInGALE, 77. The husky-voiced broadcaster (pictured in the Sixties) was the first female presenter on Radio 1 and is the corporation’s longestserving DJ. She once told Jimmy Page that she didn’t think much of the name of his band — Led Zeppelin. Known for her trademark sunglasses, she started wearing them after being badly injured in a vicious mugging in Havana. BETH TWEDDLE, 32. She is Britain’s most successful female artistic gymnast, winning bronze at the 2012 Olympics as well as three world and six European titles. But she suffered perhaps her worst injury — two fractured vertebrae in her neck, which left her temporarily unable to walk unaided — on Channel 4’s reality skiing show The Jump.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DEBBIE REYnOLDS (19322016). The Hollywood icon (pictured) shot to fame aged 19 opposite Gene Kelly in 1952’s Singin’ In The Rain. She died last year, a day after the death of her daughter, Carrie Fisher. Reynolds’ collection of film memorabilia included the ruby slippers from The Wizard Of Oz, which she sold for £550,000 in 2011. SERGEI RACHMAnInOFF (1873-1943). The Russian’s 1901 Second Piano Concerto was used in the 1945 film Brief Encounter. The Soviet Union regarded him as a ‘violent enemy’ — he fled his homeland with his family shortly after the 1917 revolution, eventually settling in the U.S., where he died of melanoma, days before his 70th birthday.
ON APRIL 1...
IN 1918, the Royal Flying Corps and Royal naval Air Service merged to form the RAF. IN 1976, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded Apple computers.
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Raingarden: A sunken, planted garden absorbing rainwater running off roofs. GUESS THE DEFINITION To smash the teapot (late 19th-century): A) To abandon one’s pledge of abstinence. B) To rap on the head with the knuckles. C) To enjoy talking while making a sale. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Lumber room — a room where bulky or unused items are kept. A lumber room was originally a Lombard room, where a pawnbroker stored goods and was named after a medieval English banking family.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
ChoP your own wood, and it will warm you twice. Henry Ford, U.S. industrialist (1863-1947)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY do cows wear bells? Because their horns don’t work. Guess The Definition answer: A