ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 142 OF 2016
THE ‘Yard of Ale’, which originated in 17th-century England, is made up of twoand-a-half pints of beer or 1.42 litres. The world record for downing one is 4.9 seconds by Peter Dowdeswell, of Northampton — he also set the record of 55.6 seconds for drinking eight pints of beer upside down. THE most league goals scored by a British football team in a season stands at 142, by Raith Rovers in 34 matches in 1937-38 — that’s 4.17 goals a game. The total included 47 strikes by forward Norrie Haywood. A RECIPE book from 1793 discovered recently by monks at Begbrook House near Bristol includes 142 recipes, including fricassee of pigs’ feet and ears, turtle soup, pigeon stew and chicken curry.
THERE ARE 224 DAYS LEFT
WITH technology revolutionising the ways of modern romance, the average couple will share 224 tweets before they regard themselves as being in love, a 2013 report found. IN 1983, in the aftermath of the Falklands War, a ‘Noah’s Ark’ ship, the Dina Khalaf, landed at Port Stanley from Dorset, loaded with 224 animals to improve the stock on the islands — much of which had been eaten or killed by the Argentinian invaders. The animals included Shetland ponies, Scottish collies, goats, a pedigree bull and budgies. SHERLOCK, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, was licensed to 224 countries and territories — including Serbia, Taiwan and Israel — around the world, the most of any BBC show.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
MR T, 64. The Chicago-born former bouncer (pictured), born Laurence Tureaud, found fame as B.A. Baracus in Eighties TV series The A-Team. His ‘Pity the fool’ catchphrase came from his first starring role as Rocky Balboa’s opponent, Clubber Lang, in the 1982 film Rocky III. ANDREW NEIL, 67. The Paisley-born journalist best known as a presenter of The Daily Politics and This Week. When he married Susan Nilsson, a Swedish communications director more than 20 years his junior in the French Riviera last August, one of his main guests was his dog, Molly.
BORN ON THIS DAY
ELIZABETH FRY (1780-1845). The Norwich-born Quaker and social reformer devoted her life to campaigning for better conditions for Britain’s prisoners, after being horrified by her visit to Newgate Prison. Her image has been on the reverse of the £5 note since 2002, but she is to be replaced in September by Winston Churchill. RAYMOND BURR (19171993). The Canadian actor (pictured) best known for TV series Perry Mason and playing a wheelchair-bound police detective in Ironside. He was said to have had a British wife who died in the same plane as Gone With The Wind Star Leslie Howard (after being shot down by the Nazis), a story later revealed to be untrue.
ON MAY 21 . . .
IN 1932, American aviator Amelia Earhart, became the first woman to make a solo crossing of the Atlantic when she landed in Ballyarnett, County Derry. IN 1972, Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian-born Australian, attacked Michelangelo’s centuries-old sculpture Pieta in the Vatican with a hammer, shouting: ‘I am Jesus Christ.’ IN 2011, American Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, who had been notifying his listeners that the end of the world would start on May 21, had a quiet day.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Men are governed by lines of intellect — women, by curves of emotion.
James Joyce (1882-1941)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY did the one-handed man cross the road? Because he wanted to get to the second-hand shop.