September 9, 2021 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE SEPTEMBER 9, 1940
LONDON, despite a death-toll of 400 and with 1,300 to 1,400 injured on Saturday, calmly went about the work of reorganising essential services after the attack. The Germans claim to have damaged selected military objectives, but neutral observers are united in describing the bombing as completely indiscriminate.
SEPTEMBER 9, 1974
EvEL KNIEvEL failed last night in his daredevil attempt (right) to jump the third-of-amile wide Snake River Canyon in Idaho, America. But he escaped with his life. His steam-powered rocket parachuted on to a ledge near the bottom of the 500ft deep canyon.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAvE STEwART, 69. The musician and producer from Sunderland founded Eurythmics with ex-girlfriend Annie Lennox. They sold more than 100million albums but he said her first solo hit, why, was about their relationship. He said: ‘I know just about every tiny molecule of Annie’, but was surprised not to be invited to her 2012 wedding. JuLIA SAwALHA, 53. The actress (right) from London, who made her name playing Saffy Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous, complained last year she had been ‘plucked, stuffed and roasted’ after she was told she would not be recast as plucky hen Ginger in the sequel to the animated film Chicken Run because her voice sounded ‘too old’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
JAMES HILTON (1900-1954). The author from Lancashire gave us the word ShangriLa (a fictional utopia) in his novel Lost Horizon. But he is best remembered for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, believed to have been written in just four days in 1934, and turned into a film starring Peter O’Toole. The teacher at the centre of the story has been described as ‘one of the most endearing characters of modern fiction’. MARGARET TYzACK (1931-2011). The Essex-born actress played Claudius’s mother in I, Claudius, and winifred in The Forsyte Saga. She said her resonant voice was a result of a rigorous theatre training: ‘If you were warned for inaudibility on wednesday and still couldn’t be heard on Thursday, you’d be sacked on Friday. You had to learn quickly.’
ON SEPTEMBER 9 . . .
IN 1791, the u.S. capital was named washington D.C. in honour of President George washington. IN 1985, Phillip Schofield presented the first live Children’s BBC from Television Centre’s Broom Cupboard.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Sudarium (1600) A) A handkerchief. B) A scullery. C) An ancient version of the sauna.
answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Freudian slip —
an inadvertent error in speech, writing memory or physical action that is thought to reveal a person’s unconscious motives. First recorded in the early 1950s, it’s named after Sigmund Freud, who analysed a large number of bizarre or nonsensical errors.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Oscar Wilde, Irish writer (1854-1900)
JOKE OF THE DAY
wHERE do toads leave their jackets? In the croakroom. Guess The Definition answer: a.