ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE DECEMBER 7, 1946
THe Board of Trade will allow manufacturers to make more clothes for O.S. [outsize] women and it is also considering whether to permit higher prices for the garments to meet the cost of extra material and labour.
DECEMBER 7, 1967
TeLePHOne bills will be worked out by computer for the first time in Britain when 250,000 subscribers in north-West London get their latest accounts.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
nICHOLAS HOuLT, 28. The Berkshire-born star of Mad Max: Fury Road and the X-Men films had his breakthrough role at 12 in About A Boy. The ex-boyfriend of Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence was discovered aged just three — he was sitting in the audience in a theatre when the show’s director spotted his ‘ability to concentrate’ and encouraged him to go into acting. He used to spend his spare time on sets knitting: ‘I knitted 24/7 pretty much. It got to the point where it wasn’t fun any more.’ Sue JOHnSTOn, 74. The Warrington-born actress has starred in The Royle Family, Brookside and Downton Abbey. She says ever since reading Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice at 14 she has been looking for her Mr Darcy, ‘and not found him’. She said this year she had not dated since 1980 when her second marriage ended. The former cleaner says her worst habit is ‘untidiness’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
GIAn LORenzO BeRnInI (1598-1680). The Italian Baroque artist and architect was said to be the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo. The father of 11, once principal artist of the papal court, created work that historian Simon Schama said ‘hovers on the borderline between sacred mystery and indecency’. However, it fell out of favour in the 19th century when art critic John Ruskin said it was ‘impossible for false taste and base feeling to sink lower’. eLI WALLACH (1915-2014). The u.S. actor starred in The Magnificent Seven and The Good, The Bad And The ugly ( right). He declined a role in 1953’ s From Here To eternity, which won Frank Sinatra an Oscar. However, Wallach won an honorary Oscar in 2010, for ‘effortlessly inhabiting a wide range of characters’. He once said: ‘I enjoy playing evil people . . . Good people, you’ve got to admit, are rather dull.’
ON DECEMBER 7 . . .
IN 1732, the Royal Opera House opened in London’s Covent Garden.
IN 1993, A 20-year fight to save a tree in Wanstead, east London, from being felled to make way for a road was lost. The High Court had earlier recognised the 250-yearold chestnut as a ‘legal dwelling’ as letters had been delivered to it by Royal Mail.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION Blaze (coined 1639) A) A white mark on a horse’s forehead. B) Of a man: handsome, good looking. C) Shoot of a stored potato. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
It’s not my bag: Meaning not to be someone’s interest or expertise. Comes from the American jazz scene where ‘bag’ was a personal style of playing.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A liBERAtED woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after. Gloria Steinem, American feminist
JOKE OF THE DAY
SOCk, sock. Shoe’s there? Guess the Definition answer: A.