ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE May 15, 1990
SCRUFFY MPs were told to smarten up yesterday by the Speaker, master tailor Bernard Weatherill. As some Labour backbenchers staged a ‘notie’ protest, he warned that casual dressers stood less chance of catching his eye and being called to speak.
May 15, 2000
THE six stars of friends will earn £500,000 each per episode over the next two years in a record-breaking deal. Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, currently paid £ 60,000 an episode, had threatened a walkout if their pay was not increased.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
SOPHIE RAWORTH, 56. The BBC newsreader from Surrey is the fourth highest paid woman at the BBC. She has run 20 marathons in 12 years, and in 2018 took part in the Marathon des Sables — 150 miles over five days in the Sahara desert. JASPER JOHNS, 94. ‘America’s foremost living artist’ is best known for his works featuring the u.S. flag. In 2020, a Johns flag artwork worth at least $1 million became one of the most valuable modern prints ever donated to the British Museum.
BORN ON THIS DAY
MARY LYON (1925-2014). The scientist from Norwich proposed the theory of X chromosome inactivation, which explained how inherited diseases are passed on, known as Lyonisation. She studied zoology, physiology and biochemistry at Cambridge but was only able to graduate with a ‘titular’ degree as women were not official members of the university until two years later. JOSEPH COTTEN (1905-1994). The u.S. actor made his film debut in Citizen Kane, which satirised newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. from then on, he said, Hearst’s papers reviewed his films without mentioning his name.
ON MAY 15…
IN 2004, Strictly Come Dancing was first broadcast on BBC1.
IN 2022, English scriptwriter Kay Mellor — creator of fat friends and Band Of Gold — died, aged 71.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION Bream (coined 1620s)
A) To clean a ship’s hull by burning off seaweed. B) Shiny. C) Eminently embraceable. answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Play fast and loose: meaning to say one thing and do another. It alludes to a cheating game practised at fairs where a belt is folded and the player is asked to pick it up with a skewer so as to pin it fast to a table; then the opponent takes the two ends and ‘looses’ it or draws it away, showing that it hasn’t been pierced at all
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Television is actually closer to reality than anything in books. The madness of TV is the madness of human life.
Camille Paglia, U.S. writer and critic JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT is a chess grandmaster’s favourite dish? Pawn cocktail. Guess The Definition answer: a.