November 18, 2022 ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE NOVEMBER 18, 1985
COMpUTERS are creating a generation gap in families. More than half the parents who own one of the machines have never used it, according to a MORI report today. A worrying aspect, it says, is that lack of parental control and ignorance of what the new ‘computer kids’ are up to could spawn a generation of software pirates, illegally copying computer programs.
NOVEMBER 18, 1997
THEy were booed off stage in Spain, their album flopped in the U.S. and Britain is awash with talk of a split. But if the Spice Girls thought things couldn’t get any worse, they were wrong. Last night their much-hyped movie Spice World got an overwhelming thumbs down from the world’s press. ‘Lightweight and dull,’ said one. ‘The Spice Girls can’t act,’ said another.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
LINDA EvANS, 80. The U.S. actress starred as Krystle Carrington in Dynasty. Of her many fight scenes with rival Alexis Carrington (Joan Collins), she said: ‘I think the lily pond was the most fun . . . we had to be on our hands and knees.’ KIM WILDE, 62. The pop star daughter of Fifties rock ’n’ roller Marty Wilde had a No 2 hit with her debut single Kids In America in 1981 and went on to sell ten million albums before turning to landscape gardening. She won a gold medal for her courtyard garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2005, and is now a radio DJ.
BORN ON THIS DAY
HANK BALLARD (1927-2003). The U.S. singer- songwriter, frontman of The Midnighters, wrote The Twist, inspired by watching teenagers dancing in a Florida nightclub. The former Ford factory worker thought his version of the song was being played on the radio, but it was the (very similar) cover by Chubby Checker, which sold over a million copies. FRANCES MARION (1888-1973). The double Oscar-winning U.S. screenwriter — ‘the woman who gave Hollywood its voice’ — wrote well over 100 scripts, including most of Rudolph valentino’s films and Greta Garbo’s first talkie. Marion started out as one of the first female war correspondents, covering World War I.
ON NOVEMBER 18 . . .
IN 1922, French novelist Marcel proust died, aged 51.
IN 1996, Tony Silva, a U.S. campaigner for the protection of exotic birds, was jailed for seven years for parrot-smuggling.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Ravelment (coined early 19th century) A) Amazement. B) A disclosure. C) Entanglement; confusion. answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED
Die in the last ditch: meaning to die fighting to the very last. It comes from William III who, when asked if his country was lost, said: ‘There is one way never to see it lost and that is to die in the last ditch.’
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Study as if you were to live for ever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.
St Edmund of Abingdon, English scholar (1174-1240)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHERE do polar bears keep their money? In a snow bank.
Guess The Definition answer: C.