ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
FEBRUARY 8, 1941 LANCASHIRE’S cotton girls are to quit their looms to start work in arms factories. Within the next few weeks the cotton industry will free 100,000 workers to switch from making shirts to making shells. FEBRUARY 8, 1965 CIGARETTE advertising on TV is to be banned. A statement announcing the Government’s decision is expected today from Postmaster-General Anthony Wedgwood Benn. The conclusion is that smoking is harmful, therefore adverts within the Government’s control should be stopped.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOHN GRISHAM, 64. The American lawyer-turnedlegal thriller writer (right) penned his first novel, A Time To Kill, between court hearings; its plot inspired by a trial he had observed years earlier. His second, The Firm, sold more than 7 million copies and was made into a film in 1993 starring Tom Cruise. Before becoming a lawyer, Grisham had jobs doing fencing, plumbing and road surfacing before working in a department store selling underwear, which he found ‘humiliating’. He was the fourth-highest paid author in the world last year, earning £16 million. SARAH MONTAGUE, 53. The journalist and ex-stockbroker presents BBC Radio 4’s The World At One. Last year, she said the Corporation’s gender pay gap had left her ‘incandescent with rage’ after learning her £133,000 salary was less than a quarter of some of her then colleagues at Today. John Humphrys was on more than £600,000.
BORN ON THIS DAY
LANA TURNER (19211995). The U.S. actress (right) — real name Julia — was ‘discovered’ by Hollywood sipping a soda in an ice cream parlour while skipping a secretarial class at school. The star of The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Bad And The Beautiful had eight marriages, twice in two years to actor-turned-restaurateur Steve Crane. JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900). A champion of J.M.W. Turner’s work and described as ‘the best art critic this country has ever produced’, Ruskin was an acclaimed artist himself. Said to be prudish, he was shocked by several erotic paintings by Turner and threw them on a bonfire, though some dispute this. His five-year marriage to Effie Gray was never consummated because, said Ruskin, ‘though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion’.
ON FEBRUARY 8 . . .
IN 1980, David and Angie Bowie divorced after nearly ten years of marriage. IN 2017, English socialite Tara PalmerTomkinson died, aged 45.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Isabelline (1600) A) Pale cream-brown, dingy yellowish grey. B) A pearly lustre. C) Silvery grey approaching white. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED
Dead wood: Meaning people or things that are no longer useful or productive; a derogatory term. The original ‘deadwood’ was a heavy timber fillet which filled the space between a ship’s keel and sternpost, adding strength and weight. QUOTE FOR TODAY Do I believe in safe sex? of course I do. I have a handrail around the bed. Sir Ken Dodd, comedian (1927-2018) JOKE OF THE DAY HOW do you make a fruit punch? Give it boxing lessons. Guess The Definition answer: A.