ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MAY 11, 1965 DRIvERS suspected of being drunk should no longer be asked to walk white lines, says a committee of doctors. It reports that such tests are not good enough to detect anything other than gross incapability to drive and that the alcohol content of the blood should be determined by blood or breath tests.
MAY 11, 1971 THE arrogance has gone. The pout has vanished. And a puckish, near-shy smile brightens the features of Michael Philip Jagger. His marriage later this week to 21-year-old South American Bianca Terez Moreno De Macias (above, on their wedding day) will be a quiet, sedate affair.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
ERIC BURDON, 79. The singer-songwriter from Newcastle was lead singer of The Animals, who had hits with The House Of The Rising Sun and We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, which became the unofficial anthem for U.S. soldiers during the vietnam War. Born in the middle of the World War II, he said: ‘I was born shouting the blues, loud enough to be heard over the Nazi air raid.’
JEREMY PAxMAN, 70. The University Challenge presenter (right) revealed in his autobiography that he has ‘always felt inadequate’. While hosting the BBC’s Newsnight, he was furious when told he had to include a weather segment. In one, he said: ‘Eastern parts will mainly avoid the rain, except for those that don’t.’ He once admitted to shooting squirrels through the bathroom window while sitting on the toilet.
BORN ON THIS DAY
DAME Margaret Rutherford (1892-1972). The Oscar-winning English actress was best known for playing Miss Marple in four films in the 1960s. One critic gave her the back-handed compliment that ‘she can act with her chins alone’. Her boyfriend, actor Stringer Davis, waited 15 years for his mother to die before proposing. Their favourite lunch was tinned steak-andkidney pudding in tomato soup.
PHIL SILvERS (1911-1985). The Emmy and Tony award-winning U.S. comedian made his name in the 1950s comedy The Phil Silvers Show, which featured his character Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko, and was once named the best sitcom of all time. Silvers married a former Miss America, but once said: ‘I only smile in public. When I’m alone I just sort of stare.’
ON MAY 11…
IN 1812, Spencer Perceval became the only British prime minister to be assassinated.
IN 1960, Adolf Eichmann, the architect of the Nazis’ ‘Final Solution’, was kidnapped by Mossad agents in Argentina.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Hoyden (c 1593)
A) A boisterous or tomboyish girl. B) A rural dweller. C) A youth between boyhood and manhood. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Nineteenth hole: Meaning the bar at a golf clubhouse. Coined in the 1920s by American golfers, the standard course has 18 holes so the 19th would be where one could celebrate or drown one’s sorrows after a round.
QUOTE FOR TODAY