ON THIS DAY
March 29, 2019
MARCH 29, 1920
During the past few days at Victoria Station, London, something like 200 reports have been received from people who have had their hats snatched off their heads while hurrying to catch trains. Thieves get good prices for the hats. The method is for one to grab the hat and pass it to a confederate.
MARCH 29, 1972
THE makers of plastic, paper and metal wrappings do not accept blame for littering the countryside. The industry is providing what the public wants, said Mr John gordon, who represented the major packaging firms at a conference yesterday on packaging and litter. ‘What does society want?’ he asked. ‘To turn the clock back 50 or 100 years?’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOHN SUCHET, 75. The Classic FM presenter, brother of Poirot actor David Suchet, is a former newsreader, who worked at ITN for more than 30 years. In 1979, to report on Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime in Iran, he passed himself off as an international carpet salesman, using a fake passport and business cards. Suchet has written six books about his hero, Beethoven. ELLE MACPHERSON, 55. The Australian supermodel, nicknamed ‘ The Body’, enrolled to study law, but never took up the course after spending a year modelling to pay for her books. Macpherson, who acted in five episodes of u.S. sitcom Friends as Joey’s girlfriend, once said: ‘I believe every woman should have seven sets of beautiful lingerie — that’s the absolute minimum, so you don’t have to worry if it takes a couple of days to do laundry. I have about 50.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
ARTHUR NEGUS (1903-1985). The antiques expert from reading, who began his TV career at 62, was the first presenter (alongside Bruce Parker) of the BBC’s Antiques roadshow, having already fronted going For A Song. When he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1967, he chose a Chippendale cabinet as his luxury item.
RUBY MURRAY ( 19351996). The Belfast- born singer, who had hits with Softly Softly and Heartbeat, was one of the most successful vocalists of the Fifties. She was so popular that her name became the cockney rhyming slang for curry. Her famous husky voice was the result of an operation for swollen glands that she had when she was six weeks old.
ON MARCH 29…
IN 1959, Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon, was released. IN 2017, the UK invoked Article 50, formally triggering the Brexit process.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: perdicine (late 19th century) A) relating to a partridge B) relating to a pheasant C) relating to a penguin (Answer below)
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Against the grain — meaning contrary to the natural inclination or feeling of someone or something; it’s a woodcutter’s saying from the 1600s, where to work or carve along the grain is much easier and smoother.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THOUGH a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened Thomas Hardy, English novelist (1840-1928)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHERE should you take a sick hornet? The waspital. Guess The Definition answer: A