July 6, 2017 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JULY 6, 1962
MARIA BUENO, twice queen of lawn tennis, may have played her last match at Wimbledon. As the 22-year-old Brazilian came off Centre Court after a humiliating defeat by jolly Czech housewife Mrs Vera Sukova, she said: ‘nothing has gone right for me.’ Maria had to contend with uproarious laughter as the crowd spotted her shocking-pink briefs and the pink lining to her white dress.
JULY 6, 1966
THE Commons voted by 244 votes to 100 to introduce a Bill legalising homosexuality in private between consenting adults. Leo Abse, MP for Pontypool, said that police, judiciary and the Home Office would find it extremely difficult to continue administering the present laws when both Houses had emphatically decided they were wrong.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
THE 14th Dalai Lama, 82. The spiritual leader of Tibet was born Lhamo Dondup on a straw mat in a cowshed to a farming and horse trading family. When actor Brian Blessed asked him how he managed to live without sex, he responded: ‘It’s true, Brian, I think of beautiful woman, then I do my mantras louder and I take a cold shower. It’s practical!’ GEOFFREY RUSH, 66. The star of The King’s Speech was the first Australian-born actor to win an Oscar (for Shine). He said one of the ‘cruellest critiques’ he’s ever had was from his children, when he voiced a bird in Finding nemo, and they told him: ‘The pelican’s got your nose, Dad.’ It is the physical feature he most dislikes, along with the ‘bony bumps on my shoulders that look as if I was pegged out to dry’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JANET LEIGH (1927-2004). The American actress, wife of Tony Curtis and mother to Jamie Lee Curtis, starred in Little Women and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. For her murder scene in the movie (right), she said she had to ‘stand in a shower getting drenched for a week’. BILL HALEY (1925-1981). The U.S. singersongwriter was a rock ’n’ roll pioneer. Rock Around the Clock sold more than 22 million copies in Haley’s lifetime. He claimed to have coined the term rock ’n’ roll in his song Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie, which had the chorus: ‘Rock, rock, rock everybody / Roll, roll, roll everybody.’
ON JULY 6...
IN 1483, King Richard III (Richard the Lionheart) was crowned. IN 1885, Louis Pasteur successfully tests and anti-rabies vaccine
WORD WIZARDRY
NEW WORD OF THE DAY Shacket: A light jacket, similar to a shirt GUESS THE DEFINITION Meldrop (coined c1480) A) A drop of mucus at the end of the nose. C) A spade’s depth in digging. C) A metal spur attached to the heel of a fighting cock. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Hold the purse strings: To be responsible for budget and expenditure. Historically, purses consisted of leather pouches, closed at the top by a drawstring which would be tied to a belt or hung around one’s neck.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
IT TAKES two to make a marriage a success and only one to make it a failure.
Lord Samuel, British Liberal politician (1870-1963)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT happened when the lion walked onto the escalator? There was an uproar. Guess the Definition answer: A