ON THIS DAY
September 12, 2018
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
SEPTEMBER 12, 1950 CATERING firms managing Festival of Britain restaurants have been told: ‘Serve good, wholesome British food’. The world’s visitors will be able to enjoy roast beef, steaks, joints, steak-and-kidney pies, puddings, tarts. And plenty of tea. SEPTEMBER 12, 1969 THE British Overseas Airways Corporation is offering American bachelors blind dates with English girls as part of a sales drive. Its ‘scientific matching service’ will also fix up American girls with British men. Travellers list their sex, age, hobbies and interests on a form, which is handed to a London computer dating firm. BOAC said: ‘We hope that the accent is on entertainment rather than sex.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MICHAEL ONDAATJE, 75. The Sri-Lankan born, Canadian author is best known for Booker prizewinning The English Patient, made into a multi-Oscar-winning film starring Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas (pictured). He named one character ‘Kip’, his nickname at London’s Dulwich College in the late Fifties. It came from oily stains on his exercise books that reminded fellow pupils of canned kippers. However, Ondaatje recalls ‘it didn’t feel insulting’. SIR IAN HOLM, 87. The Olivier and Baftaaward winning English actor, who played Bilbo Baggins in the Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit films, said the furry Hobbit feet he had to wear were ‘like boats with toes’. Holm hates milk, but in the 1979 Alien movie, he had to gargle and repeatedly spit it out during his final scene — in which his character, android Ash, was decapitated.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HERBERT HENRY ASquITH (1852-1928). The Yorkshire-born Liberal, who took Britain into World War I, was the only prime minister to take office on foreign soil. When he succeeded Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Edward VII was in France, so Asquith had to travel there for the formal ‘kissing hands’. JESSE OWENS (19131980). The u.S. athlete infuriated Hitler when he won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (right). The Nazis had mocked the American team for including ten black athletes, relying on what they deemed an inferior race. Hitler walked out of the stadium and refused to shake Owens’s hand. The runner said later: ‘I didn’t go to Berlin to shake hands with him. I’m here now, and Hitler isn’t.’
ON SEPTEMBER 12…
IN 1908, Winston Churchill married Clementine Hozier in Westminster. IN 2003, country music legend Johnny Cash died, aged 71.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Abditory (1658) A) Hardy, resisting of disease. B) Antisocial. C) A hiding place Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Fall guy: A victim, one easily duped, or a scapegoat for deeds committed by someone else; it comes from the early 20th century, when ‘fall’ means to be arrested or convicted and imprisoned.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A nicknAME is the heaviest stone that the devil can throw at a man. William Hazlitt, English essayist (1778-1830)
JOKE OF THE DAY
MY WIFE told me to stop acting like a flamingo. So i had to put my foot down. Guess The Definition answer: c.