ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE DECEMBER 29, 1942
UNDER a new Ministry of Fuel Order, which comes into force on January 1, inspectors are empowered to enter houses and demand an explanation from housewives whose fuel consumption exceeds that of the previous year. If there is no reasonable cause for extra consumption, the householders may be prosecuted.
DECEMBER 29, 1998
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme unveils its shortlist of six contenders for its Personality of the Millennium poll.
‘It is an all-male and all-dead affair,’ said a spokesman. ‘But these are the names which our listeners voted for.’
It comprises: William Caxton, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, Oliver Cromwell and — the only contender from this century — Sir Winston Churchill.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CHARLOTTE RILEY, 41.
The actress from Co. Durham played Catherine Earnshaw in ITV’s Wuthering Heights and Catherine, Princess of Wales, in the
BBC’s King Charles III. Her family ‘ all howled with laughter and said: “What are they doing, employing someone from Teesside to play Kate Middleton?” ’
JUDE LAW, 50. The Bafta- winning London-born actor — described as having ‘cheekbones you could open a letter with’ — was named after the Beatles Song Hey Jude and had lyrics from another of the band’s songs, Sexy Sadie, tattooed on his arm in tribute to his first wife, actress Sadie Frost.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DINA MERRILL (1923-2017). The U.S. actress, born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton, starred opposite Elizabeth Taylor in BUtterfield 8 and Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages. She was heiress to two fortunes, but paid her way in the early days by modelling clothes for Vogue for $10 an hour, saying: ‘It never occurred to me to ask my father or mother to pay for something they didn’t believe in.’ BERNARD CRIBBINS (1928-2022). The Oldhamborn actor and singer, who died in July, emerged unscathed from his National Service as a paratrooper, but ended up with 23 pieces of shrapnel in his bottom after kneeling on a charge filming She, opposite Ursula Andress, in the desert.
ON DECEMBER 29 . . .
IN 1966, Paul McCartney recorded the first takes of Penny Lane at Abbey Road studio. IN 2006, Britain made its final repayments of World War II loans — £42.5 million to the U.S. and £11.6 million to Canada.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Grok (c 1961)
A) A commoner, one of the ‘hoi polloi’. B) To understand; to communicate meaningfully.
C) To groan; to grumble; to complain.
answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Dog’s dinner:
Meaning a complete mess or a shoddy piece of work. It alludes to the image of a dog’s meal of jumbled-up scraps of food.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Technology . . . the knack of so arranging the world that we need not experience it.
Max Frisch, Swiss novelist (1911-1991)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHEN do accountants fall over? When they lose their balance. Guess The Definition answer: B.