ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE SEPTEMBER 27, 1960

FIDEL CASTRO, the Cuban premier, told the UN General Assembly tonight that his government ‘is considering requesting U.S. naval and military forces be withdrawn from the Guantanamo base’. It was ‘thrust on us; a base against the government of Cuba, and a constant threat and cause of fear to our people’, he declared.

SEPTEMBER 27, 1968

THREE out of four Welsh people support next year’s investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales. This decisive conclusion to all the agitation about the investiture at Caernarvon emerges from a survey of Welsh Nationalism by National Opinion Polls.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

DIANE ABBOTT, 68. The former Shadow Home Secretary, Britain’s first black female MP, went to Harrow County grammar school. The former breakfast TV researcher hit out at Labour colleague Harriet Harman in 1997 for sending her children to a selective school. But in 2003 it emerged Abbott had sent her son to a private school. She later admitted it was ‘the making of him’. IrVINE WELSH, 63. The novelist from

Edinburgh who wrote Trainspotting, turned into a 1996 film starring Ewan McGregor, said his ‘big break’ was ‘falling out of the top deck of a bus when it toppled over in a traffic accident’. He was given £2,000 compensation, which he used to buy a London flat. Prior to that, he had a heroin habit, funded by ‘multiple giro claims, petty shoplifting and theft’.

BORN ON THIS DAY

MARGARET RULE (1928-2015). The Buckinghamshire-born archaeologist made her name leading the project to raise the Mary rose, the flagship of Henry VIII’s navy, from the Solent. After learning to dive, she headed a team of more than 50, assisted by more than 500 volunteer divers and a staff of 70 at a shore base. It was finally raised in 1982 after 437 years under water. PETEr BONETTI (19412020). The London-born Chelsea goalkeeper, nicknamed ‘The Cat’, was part of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad, but was not used. He was largely blamed for England’s loss against West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final, though he had been suffering from food poisoning.

ON SEPTEMBER 27 . . .

IN 1590, Pope Urban VII died from malaria. His tenure, at 13 days, is the shortest ever. IN 1993, Cracker, starring robbie Coltrane, began on ITV.

WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Parterre (c. 1630s)

A) Everywhere. B) Bit by bit. C) Ornamental arrangement of flower beds.

Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED Cross one’s palm with silver: means to pay for a service in advance. It alludes to the old practice of placing silver coins across a gypsy fortune-teller’s hand to be told what’s in store for their future.

QUOTE FOR TODAY

I hate cocktail parties. They’re for people who’re not good enough to invite for dinner — then they stay to dinner.

Elsa Maxwell, U.S. gossip columnist (1883-1963)

JOKE OF THE DAY

WHAT did one firefly say to the other? Got to glow now. Guess The Definition answer: C Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD