Today’s birthdays

Mr Frank Dunlop, theatre director; Director, Edinburgh International Festival, 198391, is 92; Sir William Reid, Ombudsman, 1990-96, 88;

Miss Claire Bloom, actress, 88; Prof Andrew Miller,

General Secretary, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 20012005 and 2007; Principal and Vice-chancellor, University of Stirling, 1994-2001, 83; Sir

Alan Ward, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, 81; Mrs Colin

Mclachlan, Lord-lieutenant for Stirling and Falkirk, 2005-17, 77; Sir John Taylor,

Director General of Research Councils, Office of Science and Technology, Department of Trade and Industry, 1999-2004, 76; Miss Clare Short, former Labour Government Minister, 73; the Rt Rev Jonathan

Gledhill, Bishop of Lichfield, 2003-15, 70; Mr Alan Simpson, Lord-lieutenant for Stirling and Falkirk, 69; Miss Jane Seymour, actress, 68; Prof Edward Byrne,

President and Principal of King’s College London, 67; Mr Matt Groening, cartoonist; creator of The Simpsons, 65; Mr Clive Aslet, writer and journalist; Editor, Country Life, 1993-2006, 64; the Earl of Iddesleigh 62; Mr Justice Kerr 61; Sir Jonathan Marsden, Director of the Royal Collection and Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art, 2010-17, 59; and Sir Tim Barrow, diplomat; Permanent Representative of the UK to the EU, 55.

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Galileo, astronomer and mathematician, in 1564. It is also the anniversary of the fall of Singapore in 1942.