ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 295...
SAlES of false eyelashes at John lewis are 295 per cent higher in liverpool than the national average. Amanda Scott, the department store’s head of beauty, said: ‘liverpool’s sales are all about false lashes and Newcastle’s about fake tan — showing that not all stereotypes are wrong.’ THE world’s most expensive burger costs $295 (£240). le Burger Extravagant, at New York City restaurant Seredipity 3, consists of Japanese Wagyu beef infused with white truffle butter, topped with cheese, black truffles and a fried quail’s egg, served on an edible gold-dusted bread roll topped with caviar. BRITISH actress Jessica Tandy was the oldest woman to win an Oscar for best actress. She won for Driving Miss Daisy in 1989 at the age of 80 years and 295 days.
THERE ARE 71 DAYS LEFT
GEORGE Orwell’s (pictured) Animal Farm was published 71 years ago. He was inspired to write the satirical novel after seeing a boy whipping a carthorse. He said: ‘It struck me that if only such animals became aware of their strength, we should have no power over them, and that men exploit animals in much the same way as the rich exploit the proletariat.’ REMAINS of the oldest known feast were found in a cave in Israel in 2010. The banquet 12,000 years ago included 71 tortoises roasted in their shells. Archaeologists believe they were eaten during the funeral of an elderly woman of status.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
lORD (PETER) MANDElSON, 63. The ex-Business Secretary was forced to resign twice from the Cabinet. Since his days as a labour MP, he has been dogged by a story that he went into a chippie in his Hartlepool constituency, pointed to the mushy peas and asked for ‘some of that guacamole’. Although it skewered Mandy’s metropolitan reputation, he never said it but Neil Kinnock attributed it to him as a tease. MANFRED MANN, 76. The South Africanborn musician was the frontman of 1960s English rock band Manfred Mann, who had hits with Do Wah Diddy Diddy and Pretty Flamingo. In 2003, it emerged that he possessed three previously unknown hymns by Edward Elgar.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DIzzY GIllESPIE (1917-1993). The American jazz legend — trumpeter, composer and singer — was born John Birks Gillespie, the youngest of nine children. He was known for playing a ‘bent’ trumpet (right). It started after two dancers fell on it, bending the bell upwards, and Dizzy liked the change in tone that resulted. SAMUEl TAYlOR COlERIDGE (17721834). The Devon-born poet wrote The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner — but added much more to our language. He coined countless words, including soulmate, bisexual, boastfulness, dream world, dynamic, factual, pessimism and psychosomatic.
ON OCTOBER 21...
IN 1945, women in France were able to vote for the first time in parliamentary elections — 27 years after their British counterparts. IN 1966, 144 people were killed, including 116 children, when a colliery slag heap came crashing down on to a school in Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
THe trouble with having an open mind is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. Sir Terry Pratchett, novelist (1948-2015)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY are ghosts so bad at lying? You can see right through them.