ON THIS DAY
December 4, 2020
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE DECEMBER 4, 1944
THE King and Queen and two Princesses stood for nearly an hour in Hyde Park yesterday for the Home Guard stand down parade after its four years on duty. It was Mr Anthony Eden, War Secretary then, who broadcast an appeal to the nation on the night of May 14, 1940, for the formation of the LDV [Local Defence Volunteers].
DECEMBER 4, 1970
THE Government rejected the use of voting machines, Richard Sharples, Minister of State and the Home Office, told the Commons yesterday. He said the advantages were outweighed by the cost and radical changes in voting methods.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JAY-Z, 51. The American rapper, born Shawn Corey Carter, is husband to fell ow singer- songwriter Beyonce Knowles. Jay-Z has won 22 Grammy awards and sold more than 50 million albums. When he was 12, he shot his brother in the shoulder for stealing his jewellery. He is worth $1 billion according to Forbes.
BARBARA AMIEL, 80. The writer and socialite from Watford is Lady Black of Crossharbour as wife of disgraced media tycoon Conrad Black (her fourth husband). Lord Black was jailed for misusing company funds and Amiel this year published a memoir i n which she concludes: ‘B***er off to the whole damn lot of you! We’re still here.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DENNIS WILSON (1944-1983). The American singer- songwriter, who co-founded the Beach Boys, was the only one of the three Wilson brothers who could actually surf. The ‘face of Sixties California’, he married five times, including twice to the same woman. Wilson was the first Beach Boy to release a solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue. He drowned aged 39.
RONNIE CORBETT ( 1930- 2016). The Edinburgh-born comedian, one half of The Two Ronnies, was 5ft 1in. His aunt sent him on a course called How To Become Taller with a daily mantra ‘Every day and in every way I’m getting taller and taller’, but it had no effect. When he was awarded an OBE in 1978, he was delighted to discover that the Queen was a Two Ronnies fan.
ON DECEMBER 4. . .
IN 1918, Woodrow Wilson set sail from Washington f or the Versailles peace conference — the first sitting U.S. President to travel to Europe. IN 1976, English composer Benjamin Britten died, aged 63.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Grume (c1550) A) A clot of blood; B) The metallic dust that accumulates after grinding metal; C) To grumble. Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED To jump out of the frying pan into the fire: describes moving from a difficult or bad situation to a worse one; it was coined around 1530 by Sir Thomas More of Tyndale’s translation of the Bible.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Breakfast is everything. The beginning, the first thing. It is the mouthful that is the commitment to a new day, a continuing life.
A. A. Gill, British writer (1954-2016)
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW do mountains stay warm in winter? Snowcaps. GUESS The Definition answer: A.