ON THIS DAY
MAY 11, 2018
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MAY 11, 1939 WOMEN who gave up their careers for marriage are expected to return to their desks to ‘carry on’ while the 200,000 army of militiamen receive military training. They will be appointed on a temporary basis, if — of course — their husbands say ‘Yes’. MAY 11, 1968 HuNDREDS of police, using tear gas grenades, clashed with thousands of students in Paris early today in a battle of the barricades. It was the climax to five days of rioting and protest marches by the students against ‘bourgeois’ authority.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JEREMY PAxMAN, 68. The university Challenge and former Newsnight host was a war reporter for seven years, but quit because he ‘got too frightened’. In 2008, he complained that M&S’s pants ‘no longer provide adequate support’ and was invited to inspect a series of suitably attired male models to assess the quality of various ranges of underwear. PAM FERRIS, 70. The actress has played several iconic characters, including Ma Larkin in The Darling Buds Of May and Roald Dahl’s evil headmistress Miss Trunchbull in the film Matilda. Having spent years turning down ‘mother’ roles, she said: ‘There may be a serious lack of decent parts for women my age, but I would rather do the gardening.’ When making dinner, she likes to dance to Amy Winehouse.
BORN ON THIS DAY
SALvADOR DALI (19041989). The Spanish Surrealist painter produced what is perhaps his best-known work, The Persistence Of Memory, when he was just 27. Its melting clocks were believed to have been inspired by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, but Dali said they were based on a wheel of Camembert cheese that had melted in the sun. BERNARD FOx (1927-2016). The Welsh actor played Dr Bombay in u.S. sitcom Bewitched. He also starred in The Dick van Dyke Show and appeared in two Titanic films, saying proudly: ‘I’m the only person to have survived the Titanic twice.’ He declared ‘Iceberg dead ahead, sir!’ in 1958’s A Night To Remember and played a rescued first-class passenger Col. Archibald Gracie Iv in the 1997 blockbuster.
ON MAY 11…
IN 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat a chess champion (Garry Kasparov) in a traditional match. IN 1981, Jamaican musician Bob Marley died of cancer, aged 36.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Monkey board (coined mid 19th century) A) The step on buses on which conductors used to stand. B) Cover protecting chairs from hair oil. C) To stymie an opponent’s tiddlywink. (Answer below)
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Adam’s apple: The protrusion of cartilage in a man’s throat, so called from the legend that a piece of the forbidden fruit which Adam ate stuck in his throat.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
PoliticAl language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness George Orwell, English writer (1903-1950)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY was the broom late? it over-swept. Guess the Definition answer: A