ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE APRIL 8, 1967

SATIRIST Bill Oddie, fined £10 yesterday for assaulting a policeman, has complained he was manhandled by officers. Oddie, 25, claimed he was kneed, knocked to the floor of a police station and kicked. The prosecution said officers saw Oddie drive into Belsize Park Gardens, Hampstead, where he lived. Oddie said he thought they were bandits.

APRIL 8, 1968

JIM CLARK, Britain’s greatest racing driver and twice world champion, has died in a 150mph mystery crash. On an almost straight stretch he zig-zagged across the Hockenheim circuit and crashed into trees. An inquiry is trying to discover why the 32year-old’s Lotus Ford Cosworth crashed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

ROBIN WRIGHT, 51. The American star, right, was the first actress to win a Golden Globe for an online TV show, playing kevin Spacey’s wife Claire Underwood in the U.S. House Of Cards. The ex-wife of Sean Penn won a pay rise from Netflix, saying: ‘I was like, “I want to be paid the same as kevin . . . or I’m going to go public.” And they did.’ EVAN DAVIS, 55. The Worcestershire-born Dragons’ Den presenter said before taking his job as anchor on BBC2’s Newsnight he ‘can’t bear to think about’ the possibility of crying on air. ‘I cry a lot. Quite a lot of stuff on the TV sets me off, on the news.’ He has a whippet named Mr Whippy.

BORN ON THIS DAY

Mary Pickford (18921979). The Canadian-born film star, right, won a contract in 1916 to get a $10,000-a-week salary (about £180,000 today). Married to actor Douglas Fairbanks, with whom she formed United Artists, she won the second-ever best actress Oscar, for Coquette.

YIP HARBURG (1896-1981). The New yorkborn lyricist wrote more than 600 songs, including The Wizard Of Oz lyrics. His nickname was short for yip sel, yiddish for ‘squirrel’, due to his energy.

ON APRIL 8 . . .

IN 1906, Auguste Deter, the first person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, died aged 55. IN 1973, artist Pablo Picasso died of a heart attack at 91.

IN 1994, kurt Cobain, singer of grunge band Nirvana, was found dead at home in Seattle after shooting himself. He’s in the ‘27 club’ of musicians who died at 27, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones and Amy Winehouse.

WORD WIZARDRY NEW WORD OF THE DAY

Under brag — a boast involving admitting failings to prove one is sufficiently confident not to mind what others think of one. GUESS THE DEFINITION To hunt the squirrel (coined 18th century) A) To spend money before it is earned. B) The boys’ game of progressive leapfrog. C) For two coachmen to try to upset each other’s vehicles in a race. Answer below

PHRASE EXPLAINED

To go to the wall: to be pushed on one side or passed by. It alludes to those in a hurry who left the wall-side of a pavement to loungers.