ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 37 OF 2016
BRITAIN’S oldest penguin, Pat (right), died in Torquay last year at the age of 37. She was an African penguin, whose average lifespan is 15 to 20 years in the wild or 30 years in captivity. Though Chapter 37 of genesis talks of Joseph’s ‘coat of many colours’ — hence the musical Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat — this is believed to be a mistranslation. The hebrew text referred to a long garment with sleeves. ITAlIAN Renaissance painter Raphael was said by contemporaries to have died of fever on his 37th birthday after indulging in too much sex with his mistress.
THERE ARE 329 DAYS LEFT
BRAmShIll manor, a Jacobean estate in hampshire with 329 bedrooms, is said to be haunted by a legless green man, a boy who holds visitors’ hands and a woman who suffocated in a chest playing hide and seek with her husband. Developers paid £25 million for the former police training college in 2013. AN AveRAge of 329 shells were fired every day at Sarajevo during the Bosnian War siege between April 1992 and February 1996 — the longest bombardment of a capital city in modern times. loS ANgeleS has 329 days of sunshine a year. It has just suffered its driest four years on record.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ZSA ZSA gABoR, 99. The nine-times married former miss hungary is known for pithy one-liners about her love life, such as: ‘husbands are like fires: they go out when unattended’; and ‘ I am a marvellous housekeeper. every time I leave a man, I keep the house.’ RICk ASTley, 50. The eighties pop singer has enjoyed a revival thanks to the internet craze of ‘Rickrolling’, in which pranksters insert a hyperlink that appears relevant to an article, but leads to the video for his hit, Never gonna give you up. kevIN WhATely, 65. Inspector morse’s sidekick and star of spin-off lewis, trained as an accountant then was a folk singer before making it in acting. his wife, actress madelaine Newton, played the love interest of both morse in one episode and of Dennis Patterson (Tim healy) in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, which also starred her husband.
BORN ON THIS DAY
PATRICk mACNee (19222015, right). The urbane secret agent John Steed in The Avengers seemed the archetypal english gent. yet his autobiography revealed he was a drug- t aking lothario, raised in a lesbian harem and expelled from eton for peddling porn. BoB mARley (19451981). The son of a Sussex soldier and a Jamaican mother, he became a global reggae superstar before succumbing to cancer. his last words, to his son Ziggy, were: ‘money can’t buy life.’ RoNAlD ReAgAN (1911-2004). The former actor was only 69 days into his presidency in 1981 when crazed gunman John hinckley, obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster, shot him in an assassination attempt.
ON FEBRUARY 6 . . .
In 1840, the founding document of modern New Zealand, the Treaty of Waitangi, was signed by Britain and maori chiefs. IN 1958, an aircraft carrying the manchester united football team crashed on its third attempt to take off from munich airport, killing 23, including eight of the team.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
A. A. Milne (1882-1956)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WheN I was a kid, my father kept snapping me with cameras. I still have flashbacks.