ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
NOVEMBER 13, 1918 ‘I’M GOING to stick at motor driving — if not a war lorry, then a taxicab or something!’ said a Motor Transport girl home on leave. ‘You can take it from me that when the girls come back, they will have very different ideas concerning themselves from those which they had when they joined up!’ NOVEMBER 13, 1948 PRINCESS Elizabeth’s baby is expected to be born today or tomorrow. Four doctors and a midwife will be in attendance on the Princess as soon as the birth is imminent. A 41-gun salute will be fired from the Tower of London, and Navy, Army and RAF throughout the world will do the honours.[Prince Charles was born the following day.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CHRIS NOTH, 64. The American actor, best known for playing Sarah Jessica Parker’s lover ‘Mr Big’ in Sex And The City, starred in Doctor Who last month. Noth co-owns a New York bar and music venue called The Cutting Room, because many actors’ best scenes end up ‘on the cutting room floor’. ART MALIK, 66. The Pakistani-born British actor, star of The Jewel In The Crown and Holby City, was saved from bankruptcy by a part as a terrorist in the Arnold Schwarzenegger spy movie True Lies, in 1994. He is a great model railway enthusiast and asked for Hornby trains and track for his 60th birthday.
BORN ON THIS DAY
LINDA CHRISTIAN (19232011). Born Blanca Rosa Welter in Mexico, the actress was the first Bond girl, playing Vesper Lynd in the earliest TV adaptation of Casino Royale, in 1954. Dubbed the ‘anatomic bomb’ by Life magazine, she was discovered by Errol Flynn in Acapulco. ROBERT LOuIS STEVENSON (1850-94). The Scottish writer of Treasure Island and The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde is the 26th most translated author in the world. Almost certainly most readers have been saying Jekyll incorrectly — Stevenson said: ‘Let the name be pronounced as though it spelt “jee-kill”, not “jek-ill”’.
ON NOVEMBER 13…
IN 1940, Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia was released. IN 1968, Cotchford Farm, the Sussex home of author A.A. Milne and inspiration for The House At Pooh Corner, was sold to Rolling Stone Brian Jones, who died in its swimming pool a year later. IN 1998, u.S. President Bill Clinton paid Paula Jones $850,000 to drop a sexual harassment lawsuit against him.
WORD WIZARDRY
Guess The Definition: cunicular (1910) A) Curved. B) Reckless, happy-go-lucky. C) Rabbit-like Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Well heeled: Meaning well-to-do, prosperous; it comes from cock-fighting, where competitors would provide their birds with good, sharp spurs that would inflict the most damage. It only later transferred its meaning to money.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
FREud said that laughter is the outward expression of the psyche. But Freud never had to play the Glasgow Empire Sir Ken Dodd, English comedian (1927-2018)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY did the scientist wear denim? Because he was a jeanius. Guess The definition answer: C Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD