ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 258 OF 2015
CHARLES Dickens was responsible for contributing 258 new words and phrases to the dictionary. Among his linguistic inventions were ‘doormat’ (coined in Great Expectations), ‘to clap eyes on’ (David Copperfield) and ‘butterfingers’ (The Pickwick Papers).
A £5 NOTE changes hands on average 258 times (and survives only two years) before needing to be replaced. A £20 note is exchanged ten times as often — 2,328 times, on average — and has a ten-year lifespan.
THE most expensive country to hire a car in Europe is Norway, typical costs being 258 per cent more than the price in the cheapest country, Spain.
THE Royal Navy last executed one of their own Admirals, John Byng, 258 years ago, for failing to save the British-controlled island of Minorca from attack by the French. He faced the firing squad with ‘cool courage’.
THERE ARE 107 DAYS LEFT
PATIENTS needing knee replacements face a wait of 107 days — longer than for any other routine surgery, says the Patients Association. If you live in Bolton, expect an average delay of 64 days, but Barts NHS trust in London will leave you waiting for 203 days.
THE average child in the UK will have 107 ready meals or takeaways each year. In London that figure rises to 141.
FOR every 100 girls born, 107 boys are born at the same time.
THE first marathon ever held in the UK took place from Windsor Castle to the Olympic Stadium at White City in London during the 1908 Olympics, 107 years ago.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PRINCE Harry, 31, born in the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. Prince Charles told crowds outside his son had hair of ‘a sort of indeterminate colour’. Harry’s nickname, used by friends and even bodyguards, is Spike.
ACTOR Tom Hardy, 38, the Hammersmith-born star of Inception and the recent Kray brothers film, Legend, in which he plays both twins. Aged 21, he won the ‘Find Me A Model’ competition on The Big Breakfast, the classic Channel 4 early morning show.
OSCAR winner Tommy Lee Jones, 69. The Texan actor best known for Men In Black and Batman Forever was once a student at Harvard, where his room mate was Al Gore, later U.S. Vice President.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DAME Agatha Christie (1890-1976). The Torquayborn queen of the whodunit, right, qualified as an ‘apothecary’s assistant’, or dispenser, in 1917, and used her knowledge of poisons in many of her book plots.
MARCO POLO (1254-1324). Venetician adventurer and merchant famed for his 24-year travels to the Far East. On his return, he was caught up in a war between Venice and Genoa, and while a PoW, his accounts of his travels in China were taken down by a writer — so sealing his immortality.
ON SEPTEMBER 15
IN 1830, the world’s first railway accident victim died during the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. He was the MP William Huskisson, who was run over by George Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’ locomotive.
IN 1986, computer technician Barry Kirk, 32, of Port Talbot completed the first mega ‘Beanathon’ — sitting in a bath of cold baked beans for 100 hours.
IN 1916, tanks were used for the first time in war, by the British on the Somme.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’m sure I can repeat them exactly. Peter Cook (1937-1995)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you get if you cross a Beatle and an Australian dog? Dingo Starr!