ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 225 . . .
IN 1995, 225 TV programmes were watched by at least 15million people in Britain. By 2014, only six programmes achieved viewing figures of 15 million, owing to the increasing number of channels. THE most expensive football shirt ever sold at auction was the No 10 top worn by Pele in the 1970 World Cup final when he scored the opening goal in Brazil’s 4-1 win over Italy in Mexico. It went for $225,000 (£158,000) at Christie’s after being put up for sale by Italian defender Roberto Rosato, who swapped shirts with Pele after the final whistle.
THERE ARE 141 DAYS LEFT
THE heaviest goalkeeper in international football was England’s Willie Henry ‘Fatty’ Foulke (1874-1916, right), who was 6ft 3in and weighed 141 kg (22st 3lb). He played for Sheffield United and Chelsea and once stopped a game by snapping the cross bar after swinging on it. He also played for Derbyshire in four firstclass cricket matches in 1900. A BBC 1 programme on alcohol, called Booze, elicited 141 euphemisms for being drunk from viewers, including ankled, bluttered, cabbaged, trousered and zombied.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CARA DELEVINGNE, 24. The London-born actress, model and socialite’s grandmother on her mother’s side, Janie Sheffield, was lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. To get into character for her latest film role as the spooky Enchantress in comic-book flick Suicide Squad, Cara ran naked through a muddy forest at full moon. FRANçoIS HoLLANDE, 62. The French president’s former lover, Valérie Trierweiler, claimed in her 2014 book Thank You For This Moment that the Socialist politician called poor people ‘the toothless’ and that he instructed her to be given high doses of tranquillisers after they had broken up, to keep her in hospital and out of his way.
BORN ON THIS DAY
TERRY NUTKINS (1946-2012). The naturalist and presenter of TV’s Animal Magic and The Really Wild Show. As a child, he often skipped school to help the elephant keepers at London Zoo. When he was 15 and working with Ring of Bright Water author Gavin Maxwell, he lost the tips of two of his fingers when he was bitten by Edal, a pet otter. NoRRIS (1925-2004) and RoSS McWHIRTER (1925-1975). After establishing an agency to provide facts and figures to Fleet Street, the London-born twins were invited by the head of Guinness brewery to create Guinness World Records . They wrote the book every year from 1955 to 1975. KLARA HITLER (1860-1907). The birthday of Adolf Hitler’s mother became a day of national significance when the Fuhrer started to award the Mother’s Cross in 1938. Intended to encourage German women to have more children, a gold medal was given to women with seven children, silver to those with six, and bronze to women with five.
ON AUGUST 12TH...
IN 1851, Isaac Singer gained a patent for his sewing machine. It could sew 900 stitches a minute, compared to 40 for a seamstress. IN 1964, James Bond author Ian Fleming died, aged 56, on his son Caspar’s 12th birthday. His last words were to the crew of the ambulance: ‘I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.’ IN 1966, John Lennon (right) apologised at a news conference in Chicago for saying: ‘The Beatles are more popular than Jesus.’
QUOTE FOR TODAY
‘Do what’s right for you, as long as it don’t hurt no one.’
Elvis Presley (1935-1977)
JOKE OF THE DAY
HAVE you heard the butter joke? Don’t spread it.