ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JaNUaRy 23, 1901
IMMEDIATELy the news of the Queen [Victoria]’s death yesterday was made known, all theatres, music-halls and other places of amusement were closed. Anticipation had not dulled the edge of sorrow that the announcement carried, although, perhaps, it had prepared people for controlling the exhibition of their emotions.
JaNUaRy 23, 1974
MOST of the food on supermarket shelves will cost nearly 10 per cent more by the end of the year, a food firm chief forecast yesterday. But he claimed this was good news when set against recent world price increases. Ronald Halstead, boss of the giant Beechams group, said: ‘In the year up to last November the price of imported food and packaging rose by 38 per cent.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
EwEN BREMNER, 51. The Edinburghborn actor played the lead role in the original stage version of Trainspotting, but had to make do with playing Spud in the film — after Ewan McGregor won the part. Bremner was so ‘miffed’ by the decision that he nearly pulled out. ‘I was on that precipice of making a huge mistake.’ SIR Richard Dearlove, 78. The ex-spy from Cornwall, a former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 was recruited while studying at Cambridge. He was known in whitehall as ‘C’, and like all British spymasters, signed his memorandums in green ink.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
RuTGER HAuER (1944
2019). The Dutch actor,
‘ one of cinema’s finest villains’, said his bestknown film, Blade Runner, was also his favourite. He wrote much of his character replicant Roy Batty’s closing speech, which ended with: ‘Time to die.’
The star made a second fortune from his ads for Lurpak butter and Guinness. GERTRuDE ELION (1918-1999). The u.S. biochemist won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for her ‘new, more rational approach to drug development’. It allowed her to create medications to help prevent rejection of transplanted organs and to treat herpes, rheumatoid arthritis, gout and malaria.
ON JANUARY 23…
IN 1571, Queen Elizabeth I opened the Royal Exchange in London. The centre of commerce is still used for the formal proclamation of a new sovereign.
IN 1965, Petula Clark (right) reached No.1 in the u.S. with Downtown.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Hepeating (coined 2018)
A) Competing in the heptathlon.
B) Having hiccups.
C) A situation when a man repeats a good idea expressed by a woman and acts as though it were his own (answer below).
PHRASE EXPLAINED Kick into touch:
to remove something from the centre of attention; ‘touch’ in football and rugby refers to the touchlines that mark the playing area. Beyond that, as in ‘into touch’, the ball is no longer in play.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The materials of city planning are sky, space, trees, steel and cement in that order
Le Corbusier, Swiss-born architect (1887-1965)
JOKE OF THE DAY
wHAT do you call a Ford Fiesta that’s run out of petrol? a Ford Siesta.
Guess The Definition answer: C. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD