ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 347...
THERE are 347 hectares of vineyards growing chardonnay vines in the UK. The Romans brought wine-making to Britain 2,000 years ago and last year, for the first time, a champagne house invested in our sparkling wine industry when Taittinger bought 69 hectares of farmland in Kent. SAMUEL PEPYS wrote his last diary entry 347 years ago, forced to stop by failing eyesight. He wrote: ‘And thus ends all that I doubt I shall ever be able to do with my own eyes in the keeping of my journal, I being not able to do it any longer, having done now so long as to undo my eyes almost every time that I take a pen in my hand.’ THE record for the most signatures on a birthday card is held by Churchill — the insurance company’s dog mascot, right, not the Prime Minister — with 4,347, beating the 2,707 on Spiderman’s 50th birthday card in 2012. ONE POUND when the Queen came to the throne in 1952 is worth more than £19 in today’s money. THE risk of humans becoming extinct at some point this century is 19 per cent, according to the Global Catastrophic Risks Survey conducted by the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. CONNIE FRANCIS, 78. The U.S. singer is one of the most commercially successful female singer of all time, with worldwide sales in excess of 200 million records. Her agent warned her that her autobiography, at 1,400pages, would be longer than those of Mrs Thatcher and Joan of Arc combined. Francis responded: ‘Did Margaret Thatcher or Joan of Arc ever headline the Copacabana?’ JENNIFER CONNELLY, 46. The New York-born actress, right, who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, was just 12 and a child model when cast in 1984’s Once Upon A Time In America. She is often mistaken for fellow actress Demi Moore. ‘I don’t even know if Demi Moore has a sister, but if she does, it’s not me,’ she says. JASPER CONRAN, 57. The fashion designer son of Habitat founder and restaurateur Sir Terence Conran and Superwoman author Shirley Conran, cast supermodel Naomi Campbell in her first catwalk show. JOHN OSBORNE (1929-1994). The playwright was one of the ‘angry young men’ writers who came to prominence in the Fifties. He compared critics to faulty sewage systems and described the suicide of his fourth wife, actress Jill Bennett, as ‘the coarse posturing of an overheated housemaid’. JOSEPH BRUCE ISMAY (1862-1937). The chairman and MD of the White Star Line was the highest-ranking official to survive the Titanic disaster. The 1997 blockbuster film depicted him as a coward and, in 2012, his descendants spoke out for the first time to clear his name and reject claims that he had escaped on the first lifeboat and even dressed as a woman to secure his rescue. IN 1988, 35 people died and 415 were injured in the Clapham Junction rail crash after three trains collided during morning rush hour in South London. In 1992, Princess Anne wed for the second time, marrying Timothy Laurence at a church near Balmoral Castle. Her 11-yearold daughter Zara was bridesmaid. IN 2003, Keiko, the killer whale that starred in the Nineties Free Willy films, died in a Norwegian fjord, aged about 27.
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In a mad world, only the mad are sane’ Akira Kurosawa, Japanese filmmaker (1910-98) WHAT does Santa do when his helpers get too fat? He sends them to an elf farm.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BORN ON THIS DAY ON DECEMBER 12 . . . QUOTE FOR TODAY JOKE OF THE DAY