ON THIS DAY

FEBRUARY 22, 1945

THE Ministry of Aircraft Production is to build aluminium houses at the rate of one every 12 minutes at four plants to supplement the emergency building programme. The houses will roll off the assembly lines in four sections and five workmen can finish a house, complete with electrical, gas and plumbing connections, in four hours.

FEBRUARY 22, 1971

FEW fashions have caught on like hot pants. Makers are turning out about a million pairs a week. Harrods have them in seven departments, including model dresses, knitwear and sports. And all the chain stores from Marks & Spencer to Woolworths are cashing in on the boom.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

DAME JuLIE WALTErS, 69. The actress, Oscar nominated for Educating rita and Billy Elliot, initially trained to be a nurse and played Victoria Wood’s mum in sitcom Dinnerladies despite their age gap of just three years. She met her husband ‘in a posh bar’ after shouting: ‘I bet nobody here is a member of the Labour Party.’ He said, ‘I am actually’ and ‘moved in the night we met’. JAMES BLuNT, 45. Born James Hillier Blount, the singer-songwriter served with the Household Cavalry in Kosovo and guarded the Queen Mother’s coffin before reaching the top of the charts in 2005 with hit You’re Beautiful. Once branded ‘the most hated man in pop’, he’s now famed for his sharp ripostes on Twitter. responding to one tweeter who said: ‘James Blunt just has an annoying face and a highly irritating voice,’ he shot back: ‘And no mortgage.’

BORN ON THIS DAY

KENNETH WILLIAMS (1926-1988). The star of 26 Carry On films was dubbed a ‘vitriolic, nostril-flaring, hypochondriac actor’ by the British Film Institute. Williams, who was gay, proposed to his Carry On friend Joan Sims, telling her: ‘Don’t you worry, there won’t be any saucy stuff.’ She reportedly replied: ‘But Ken…I rather like the saucy stuff.’ rOBErT BADEN-POWELL (1857-1941). The founder of the Boy Scouts recommended cold showers and boxing to treat ‘self-abuse’. In his book, Scouting For Boys, he also advised: ‘No boy ever began smoking because he liked it but because he thought it made him look like a grown-up man. As a matter of fact it generally makes him look a little ass.’

ON FEBRUARY 22…

IN 1878, Frank Woolworth opened his first Woolworth shop, in New York. His first British store opened in 1909. IN 2017, David Bowie received two posthumous Brit awards, a year after his death.

WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION: Knafeh (2017) A) Enough B) A shrug. C) A dish consisting of layers of pastry and soft cheese, soaked in sugar syrup. Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED Play gooseberry:

Meaning to act as a chaperon — the term in the early 1800s was ‘gooseberry picker’. It probably comes from the notion that a chaperone would occupy themselves picking gooseberries to give a couple some time alone.

QUOTE FOR TODAY

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by. Douglas Adams, English writer (1952-2001)

JOKE OF THE DAY

WHY do doctors love testing patients’ reflexes so much? They get a kick out of it. Guess The Definition answer: C.