ON THIS DAY

July 22, 2022

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE

JULY 22, 1970

DISC jockey Noel Edmonds, 21, a former student teacher, is to take over Kenny Everett’s Saturday spot on Radio 1.

JULY 22, 2005

WITH four failed suicide bombers on the run last night, a Tube passenger told how he came face to face with one. Abisha Moyo heard a bang and saw a young man lying on top of a rucksack. His bomb had failed to go off — as had three others in what an anti-terrorist officer called a ‘bloody lucky escape’ for London. Two weeks after the July 7 horror, bombers had again targeted Underground trains and a double-decker bus. This time there were no deaths.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

RHYS IFANS, 55. The Welsh actor starred in Spider- Man: No Way Home and played Hugh Grant’s flatmate Spike in Notting Hill. Once the Super Furry Animals’ frontman, he won a Bafta for playing Peter Cook in Channel 4’s Not Only But Always. He said his worst trait is enjoying his own company: ‘Before I know it, I’ve gone for weeks without speaking to, or seeing, anyone.’ Asked who would play him in a film, he said: ‘Rod Hull’s Emu.’ LOUISE FLETCHER, 88. The U.S. actress won an Oscar, Bafta and Golden Globe for playing Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Of her decision to follow it with horror film Grizzly II, she said: ‘I was 50. That should explain it all. you’re too old to be young, and you’re too young to be old. It’s a big dip in careers.’

BORN ON THIS DAY

MARGARET WHITING ( 1924- 2011). The U. S. singer had hits with That Old Black Magic and Baby, It’s Cold Outside, a duet with Johnny Mercer, who said: ‘She sings like a trumpet.’ Whiting’s fourth marriage was to a former gay porn actor 22 years her junior. She said he was homosexual, but ‘only round the edges’. ESTELLE BENNETT (1941-2009). The beehived U.S. singer found fame with The Ronettes — whose hits include Be My Baby and Do I Love you. It was Bennett who called producer Phil Spector and got the audition which saw them signed. Bennett, whose sister Ronnie was lead singer, was devastated at the band’s break-up. Schizophrenia and homelessness followed.

ON JULY 22 . . .

IN 1933, American Wiley Post achieved the first solo world circumnavigation by air. IN 2011, Norwegian far-Right extremist Anders Breivik set off a car bomb in Oslo and attacked a summer camp on Utøya island, killing 77 people in total.

WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Tritanopia (c. 1915)

A) Walking backwards. B) Inability to distinguish between blues and greens. C) The knocking of knees. Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED

Feeding frenzy: Meaning an episode of frantic rivalry or competition; it also denotes a competitive, aggressive group attack on prey by piranhas or sharks

QUOTE FOR TODAY

I prefer to be called a fool for asking the question, rather than to remain in ignorance.

John Homans, U.S. professor of surgery (1836-1903)

JOKE OF THE DAY

WHY are books so afraid of their sequels? Because they always come after them. Guess The Definition answer: B. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD