ON THIS DAY
January 28, 2017
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JANUARY 28, 1967
FOUR- LETTER words used by angry footballers set a problem for the GPO. Reports on bad language offences have to go by post to the FA Disciplinary Committee.
To avoid embarrassing FA secretaries, the envelopes are marked ‘Not to be opened by females’. But the secretary of the Referees’ Association said many members are worried that they are open to prosecution by the GPO, which bans obscene language in letters.
JAN 28, 1938
BOULOGNE was invaded at noon by as disreputable a party of motorists as ever landed from England — the 25 cars which set out from John o’ Groats in the Monte Carlo rally. Cars were grimy with the mud of 800 miles’ winter travelling, drivers and navigators were bearded, red-eyed and languid after losing two nights’ sleep. The women were even past caring about their complexions. BOBBY BALL, 73 (right). The English comedian (born Robert Harper) is, with Tommy Cannon, one half of Cannon and Ball — the UK’s longest-running double act. They met in the 1960s in a factory and became part of a jazz trio, but turned to comedy after realising ‘comedians got more money than singers’. ALAN ALDA, 81. The American actor, director and screenwriter played Captain Hawkeye Pierce in 1970s TV series M*A*S*H and Senator Arnold Vinick in The West Wing. His upbringing was difficult, as his mother had paranoid schizophrenia. The first line of his autobiography reads: ‘My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956). The American Abstract Expressionist painter, known for his ‘drip and splash’ technique, laid his canvas on the floor and poured paint from a can instead of using an easel. Critics, dubbed him ‘Jack the Dripper’. SIR HENRY MORTON STANLEY ( 1841- 1904), right. The Welsh journalist and explorer was born Rowlands, and fled poverty to go to America as a young lad. He asked a store owner called Henry Stanley — who had in fact long wished he had a son — ‘do you need a boy?’, meaning hired help. He employed and then adopted him. later Stanley tracked down the lost missionary David livingstone in Africa and uttered the immortal line: ‘Dr livingstone, I presume?’
ON JANUARY 28 . . .
IN 1896, Walter Arnold became the first Briton given a speeding fine, for travelling ‘at the rate of eight miles an hour’ (the limit was 2mph). IN 1813, Pride And Prejudice, by Jane Austen, was first published anonymously in london.
WORD WIZARDRY NEW WORD OF THE DAY
Zenware: software that has a calming effect.
GUESS THE DEFINITION Scaphism (coined 1913)
A) loathing. B) The process of spreading manure. C) Persian way of executing criminals by covering them with honey and letting the sun and insects finish the job. ( Answer below)
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Queer Street: Began as Query Street, from shopkeepers’ habit of putting a question mark in their books against the name of a customer whose credit was shaky; the customer was said to be in this place until he’d paid his debts.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I’m not conceited. It is just that I have a fondness for the good things in life and I happen to be one of them. Kenneth Williams, English actor (1926-1988)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a judge with no thumbs? Justice Fingers. Guess The Definition answer: C.