May 18, 2022 ON THIS DAY
FROM DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MAY 18, 1899
THE Queen’s short visit to
London was brought to a close yesterday, when Her Majesty proceeded to South Kensington to lay the foundation stone of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Her Majesty remained in her carriage during the short ceremony.
MAY 18, 1987
LOrD OLIVIEr, 80 on Friday, has decided to quit acting. Location work and even studio work would be too much for him, and he feels he no longer has the strength to appear on the stage. Instead, he will begin a new career reading verse or prose for radio.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CArOLINE CHArLES, 80. The Cairo-born British fashion designer, who worked for the ‘inventor’ of the mini skirt, Mary Quant, has dressed Princess Diana, Barbra Streisand, Cilla Black, ringo Starr, Mick Jagger and Emma Thompson (who wore a Charles design when she collected her 1993 Oscar for Howards End). Among her first creations was a white cotton dress made from a bedspread. TINA FEY, 52. The American actress, comedian and writer (right) starred in Mean Girls (which she also wrote) and Muppets Most Wanted, and was the first female head writer of U.S. comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live.
She’s won three Golden Globes and hosted the event four times. Of men who say they don’t enjoy female comics, she says: ‘I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
W.G.SEBALD (1944-2001). The German author wrote The Emigrants and Austerlitz (ranked by one list as the fifth best book of the 21st century). He spent his later life in Norfolk, but insisted he would probably feel most at home ‘in some hotel in Switzerland’.
Born Winfried Georg Sebald, he went by the name of Max after he became fed up with often being called ‘Miss Winifred Sebald’ — particularly in English doctors’ surgeries. rOBErT MOrSE (19312022). The U.S. actor (right) played ad man Bert Cooper in TV’s Mad Men and starred in the stage and film versions of musical How To Succeed In Business Without really Trying. He won Emmy and Tony awards, but on why he never became a fully fledged movie star, he said: ‘The parts I could play, they give to Jack Lemmon.’
ON MAY 18…
IN 1830, Englishman Edwin Beard Budding signed an agreement for his invention, the lawn mower, to be manufactured. IN 1954, fast-food chain Wimpy opened a branch in London, becoming the first restaurant to serve hamburger-based meals in the UK.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Cantonment (c 1750s)
A) Isolation, confinement. B) The burning of the down of seabirds. C) A military garrison.
Answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED To be in the wrong box:
Means to be placed at a disadvantage or in difficulty; likely to have derived from the boxes of apothecaries, from which the wrong choice might result in poison rather than medicine.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it. Bob Hope, English-born
comedian (1903-2003)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT does opaque mean? According to the dictionary, it is still unclear. Guess The Definition answer: C