ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JANUARY 11, 1941
A DECREE issued in Rome today orders the death penalty for food hoarding. A census of nation’s supplies is to be taken, and the Government will commandeer what it requires.
JANUARY 11, 1973
KEITH MOON, 28-year-old drummer of The Who pop group, was fined £ 15 yesterday for not having a licence for his shotgun. He asked magistrates at Chertsey, Surrey: ‘do you take American Express… I haven’t used money for years.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
BRYAN ROBSON, 66. The former England and Manchester United captain was called by Sir Alex Ferguson ‘a miracle of commitment, a human marvel who pushed himself through every imaginable limit’ and by Sir Bobby Robson as England’s best player. nicknamed ‘Captain Marvel’, he said in 2021: ‘People talk about fitness, but stamina-wise I’d back myself against anyone in today’s game.’ Gary Lineker says that if Robson had not been injured in the 1986 and 1990 World Cups, England might have won at least one of them.
VICKI PETERSON, 65. The U.S. musician is lead guitarist with The Bangles, which she created with her sister debbi and Susanna Hoffs. They topped the UK charts with Eternal Flame. Vicki describes her younger self as ‘the kid who brought a guitar to every sleepover in order to torture everyone with my newest creation’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MARY RODGERS (19312014). The composer and writer from new York penned the musical Once Upon a Mattress and the novel Freaky Friday — turned into films starring Jodie Foster and Jamie Lee Curtis. She was the daughter of Richard Rodgers (half of The Sound Of Music’s Rodgers and Hammerstein). Receiving condolences on the death of her alcoholic father, she said: ‘I didn’t lose any more than you did, because basically what I loved about him was only what you loved — his music.’
BIG BANK HANK (1956-2014). The U.S. rapper, born Henry Lee Jackson, was one third of the Sugarhill Gang, whose 1979 debut Rapper’s delight took rap music into the mainstream and sold five million copies worldwide. While managing a pizza shop, he auditioned on the pavement as the record label boss recorded him over a track on her car stereo.
ON JANUARY 11 . . .
IN 1928, Thomas Hardy, English author of Tess Of The d’Urbervilles, died aged 87. IN 1972, East Pakistan was renamed as Bangladesh.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Sinsyne (mid 14th century)
A) From that time; since then.
B) A union of opposites.
C) diagonally across from something else. answer below.
PHRASE EXPLAINED Give one one’s head: Meaning to allow someone freedom of action; it alludes to letting a horse go as fast as it wants rather than check its pace with a bit and reins.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
Fran Lebowitz, U.S. author
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT does a building wear? address. Guess The Definition answer: a