January 18, 2022 ON THIS DAY
JANUARY 18, 1990
THE man who axed Are You Being Served? and other much-loved BBC TV comedies explained yesterday what was wrong with Mrs Slocombe (played by Mollie Sugden, right) and Co. ‘It was smutty, sexist, end-of-the-pier stuff,’ said Gareth Gwenlan, who has retired after six years as the Corporation’s Head of Comedy.
JANUARY 18, 1997
THE controversial £700million Millennium Exhibition to mark the year 2000 was saved last night in an 11th-hour deal agreed by Labour and the government. National Heritage Secretary Virginia Bottomley will confirm the go-ahead to build a massive dome at Greenwich in a statement revealing that Labour has won the case for a review of the project if Tony Blair wins the election.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SASHA SWIRE, 59. The wife of former
Foreign Office minister Sir Hugo Swire hit the headlines in 2020 with her memoir Diary Of An MP’s Wife, which was described as inflicting ‘ritual humiliation’ on a host of Tory MPs and described Boris Johnson as ‘desperately lonely and unhappy on the inside’. But Swire insists: ‘Friends aren’t important to me. I’m more interested in writing.’
ESTELLE, 42. The London-born rapper, songwriter and actress had a No1 hit and w o n a G r a m m y w i t h A m e r i c a n B o y, featuring Kanye West. She introduced herself after spotting him eating in a chicken restaurant in LA. Estelle (whose surname is Swaray) started out as a music journalist. Of Adele being hailed as Britain’s new soul star, she said: ‘Adele ain’t soul. She sounds like she heard some Aretha records once.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DAVID RUFFIN (19411991). The U.S. singer found fame with The Temptations, and performed lead vocals on Motown classics including My Girl. He was named as one of the greatest singers of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. Marvin Gaye said: ‘I heard in [his voice] a strength my own voice lacked.’ His brother Jimmy Ruffin had hits with What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted and Hold On (To My Love). PETER ROGET (1779-1869). The doctor and inventor from London made his name with his Thesaurus Of English Words And Phrases, which was published in 1852 and has never been out of print. The original contained 15,000 words, while today’s version has 250,000. He also invented a slide rule to calculate the roots and powers of numbers.
ON JANUARY 18 …
IN 1963, Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died, aged 56. He was succeeded by Harold Wilson. IN 1979, Terry Wogan hosted the first episode of the BBC’s Blankety Blank.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: chamois (c 1530)
A) The colour red in heraldry B) Anything badly formed or out of shape C) An agile, goat-like antelope
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
To have two bites of a cherry — means to have a second opportunity to do something; to eat a cherry, of course, usually takes only one bite.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The future’s so bright I gotta wear shades
Pat MacDonald, U.S. songwriter
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY did the octopus beat the shark in a fight? It was well armed.
Guess The Definition answer: C.