ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 8 OF 2016
HENRY VI was only 8 months old when he became king in 1422. His reign inspired Shakespeare’s only formal trilogy — the Henry VI plays — which still upsets legal eagles with the line: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’ Shakespeare gift shops report that items bearing the slogan tend to sell well. ENGLAND and Wales have only 8 Bank and Public Holidays in 2016 — one fewer than Scotland and two fewer than Northern Ireland. THE original flashing lights on the Daleks, the alien villains in Doctor Who, came from indicators on old Morris 8 cars.
THERE ARE 358 DAYS LEFT
THERE are 358 species of parrots worldwide, including cockatoos, lovebirds and budgerigars. The oldest is thought to be Poncho, right, a macaw who turned 90 last October and who has retired to Shrewsbury after a career in Hollywood. She celebrated with a walnut-stuffed cake. THE musical Drood, based on the unfinished Charles Dickens novel The Mystery Of Edwin Drood can, by use of three audience votes on songs, score and more, have a possible 358 different ending combinations. THE first picture book for children, Orbis Sensualium Pictus — or The World Of Things Obvious To The Senses In Pictures — was produced 358 years ago in Germany. The English edition taught children that ‘the Duck quacketh’ and ‘the Crow crieth’.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
KIM JONG-UN, 33. A year before he came to power in North Korea, his father Kim Jong-il, then leader, told officials to make a list of all people with the name Kim Jong-un and ‘train them to voluntarily change their names’. SHIRLEY BASSEY, 79. The singer’s first marriage was to gay film producer Kenneth Hume. It is said Bassey, right, thought she could change his sexual orientation. Though he managed her career, they didn’t live together. STEPHEN HAWKING, 74. The scientist, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21, uses a cheek muscle to control his communication system. Recently upgraded, it now predicts what word he is about to type — ‘hole’ after ‘black’, for example. DAVID BOWIE, 69. The Londoner was asked by director Danny Boyle to sing his song Heroes at the 2012 Olympics closing ceremony, but refused. ‘He sadly didn’t want to do anything live,’ said Boyle.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ELVIS PRESLEY (1935-77). Before he found fame, ‘the King’ auditioned for a band called the Songfellows — they turned him down, suggesting he couldn’t harmonise. GRAHAM CHAPMAN (1941-89). A member of the Monty Python team, he co-authored the ‘Parrot Sketch’ and played the title role in the 1979 film Life Of Brian. Michael Palin noted in his 1970 diary that his own consumption of food and drink was rising ‘in direct relation to the amount of time spent with Graham Chapman, the high priest of hedonism’.
ON JANUARY 8 . . ..
IN 1832, Britain’s first newspaper cartoon was printed i n Bell’s Weekly Messenger. It depicted the House of Lords shocked by the Reform Bill’s plan to create 50 new peers. IN 1886, Britain’s longest railway tunnel, the Severn Tunnel, was opened by the Great Western Railway. Running for more than four miles under the Severn, it remained the longest mainline rail tunnel in the UK for 121 years until the building of tunnels for the HS1 Channel Tunnel Rail Link. IN 1838, Samuel Morse and assistant Alfred Vail successfully used Morse Code to send a message. It read: ‘A patient waiter is no loser.’
QUOTE FOR TODAY
A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.
Novelist Tom Wolfe
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT is brown and sounds like a bell? Dung!