ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
NOVEMBER 20, 1945 LIFE-SIZE photographs of Hitler will be sold as dartboards in London next week. There are nearly 30 of them among the ‘effects’ of the German Embassy, which are to be auctioned at the Earls Court Exhibition buildings. No one knew what to do with them until Mr Guy Coleridge, who is to conduct the sale, hit on the idea of using them as dartboards. NOVEMBER 20, 1964 ON BROADWAY this week, and in London around Christmas and just after, it will be all Julie Andrews. With Mary Poppins a huge hit at the box office, 29-yearold Miss Andrews (right) has been transformed into a fully fledged star, with little things like half a million dollars per show being written into contracts and the best suites at hotels.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SERGEI POLUNIN, 29. The Ukrainian dancer became the youngest ever male principal of the Royal Ballet at 19. Though described as his generation’s Nureyev, he quit ballet in 2012, saying he wanted a semblance of a ‘normal life, just watching TV’. When his dance video for singer Hozier’s hit Take Me To Church went viral, he reconsidered and is now a freelance principal dancer and actor. Kenneth Branagh described him as a ‘magnetic screen presence’ in his debut film, Murder On The Orient Express. BO DEREK, 62. The American actress became a star thanks to a slowmotion run on a beach in the 1979 film 10 (right). She met her husband, director John derek, who was 30 years her senior, when she was just 16. They moved to Germany until she was 18 to avoid U.S. statutory rape laws. Of breaking up his marriage to dynasty’s Linda Evans, she said: ‘Some people could say it was meant to be, because I was with him until he died. But that just sounds like an excuse to me. It’s still the wrong thing to do.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
ALISTAIR COOKE (1908-2004). The Emmy award-winning journalist from Salford was best known for his BBC radio programme Letter From America, which ran for 2,869 episodes and 58 years — becoming the longest-running series in history to be presented by a single person. Cooke was only a few yards away from Senator Bobby Kennedy, with whom he shared his birthday, when he was assassinated in 1968.
ON NOVEMBER 20 ...
IN 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began, with 20 Nazi leaders charged with war crimes. IN 1947, Princess Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten in Westminster Abbey.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Nomophobia A) The humorous fear of being without one’s mobile phone. B) The fear of giving out one’s name. C) The fear of employment. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Willy-nilly — meaning haphazardly, without direction. In the 1600s, it suggested that something must be done no matter what (as in ‘will I, nill I’ with ‘will’ meaning ‘wanting to do’ and ‘nill’ meaning the opposite.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
ONLY those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. politician (1925-68)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHO corrects Santa’s grammar? A subordinate claus. Guess The Definition Answer: A.