ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE NOVEMBER 14, 1942
IF you are lucky, tinned turkey may be in store for Christmas. The Ministry of Food has said that it no longer needs a small supply of 1lb cans that were imported for hospitals. They will be distributed fairly all over the country, and the maximum price will be 3s 6d [£6 in today’s money].
NOVEMBER 14, 1969
A Dockland pub’s customers offered to raise £400 [£6,000 today] to buy Prince Philip a polo pony. The Prince’s remarks on U.S. TV about giving up polo to aid hardpressed royal expenses spurred drinkers at the Fellmongers Arms, Bermondsey, into action. So far they have collected £7.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Charles, Prince of Wales, 69. Charles Philip Arthur George was the first heir apparent to sit public exams when he took O- levels and the first to take a degree (a 2:2 in history at Cambridge). In 2009, he was named the world’s best-dressed man by esquire magazine, which said: ‘Admirably, the Prince keeps his wardrobe in appropriate style; we’re told he has a room laid out like a tailor’s shop.’ Condoleezza Rice, 63. Born in racially segregated Birmingham, Alabama, Rice was the first black woman to serve as U.S. secretary of state or national security adviser. At eight, she felt the floor of her father’s church shake (he was a Presbyterian minister) as a Ku Klux Klan bomb exploded at a Sunday School service two blocks away, killing four black girls, including one of her friends.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ASTRID LINDGREN ( 1907- 2002). The Swedish author of Pippi longstocking (a name thought up by her daughter during a bedtime story) sold more than 80 million books in 76 languages during her lifetime. She shocked her community when, aged 19 and working for a local newspaper, she became pregnant by her married boss. After giving birth in Copenhagen, she put her son into foster care until she could afford to look after him herself. BRIAN KEITH (1921-1997). The U.S. actor, who appeared in his first film aged three, played the father in Disney’s 1961 film The Parent Trap and had a six decadeslong career in film and TV. He once said: ‘All TV seems to want is tripe’ — despite achieving his greatest fame in the sitcom Family Affair.
ON NOVEMBER 14 …
IN 1687, King Charles II’s mistress, eleanor ‘Nell’ Gwyn, died aged 37. IN 1952, The first official singles chart was published by the New Musical express.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION Dol (coined 1947) A) To empty, to make void. B) A unit of intensity of pain. C) A coin. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED To have ants in one’s pants
— Meaning to be restless or over- eager, a phrase made popular by U.S. army general Hugh Johnson, who in 1933 said of a colleague’s agitation that it was ‘just a symptom of the ants of conscience in his pants’.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy. Spike Milligan, comedian (1918-2002)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call two men who hang above a window? Kurt ’n’ Rod. Guess The Definition answer: B