ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
MAY 27, 1950 PETrOL derationing means a new boom for holiday towns, breweries, hotels, public houses — and second-hand cars.
There was a rush for shares in all these sectors in the City. Used car prices are set to leap — some have already risen by a third.
A high-powered American car, worth £380 at breakfast was worth £550 by lunchtime. Small horse-powered British cars, always at a premium, jumped ten per cent. MAY 27, 1972 THE Daily Mail has secured seats on the first great BOAC Concorde passenger flight to New York. We will give them to two of our readers, to share in the making of history.
They will be the first passengers to experience the excitement of the Earthshrinking Concorde. They will drink champagne while zooming across the Atlantic and puzzle at having landed two hours before they took off from London.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DENiSE VAN OUTEN, 46. The former Big Breakfast presenter (right) from Basildon, Essex, has been a soap star in two hemispheres — appearing in EastEnders and Neighbours. in 1998, she apologised for stealing an ashtray and tissue-box holder from Buckingham Palace and sent them back to the Queen with a stuffed camel she’d bought in Tunisia and a note reading: ‘Sorry, Ma’am. i didn’t mean to give you the hump.’ PAT CASH, 55. The headband-wearing Australian tennis star, who won Wimbledon in 1987, is a British history buff. He loves ‘the kings and queens and the various invaders’ but not the tennis world, which he says is ‘a really nasty, bitter environment where everybody is in it for their own thing’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CiLLA BLACk (1943-2015). The former Liverpool typist’s hits such as You’re My World and Alfie made her a millionaire by the age of 25, and she went on to become the highest-paid woman on TV, fronting Blind Date and Surprise Surprise. One critic said she became a star thanks to ‘the phenomenon of ordinariness’. DON WiLLiAMS (1939-2017). The U.S. musician, known as the Gentle Giant of country music, worked as a debt collector and truck driver before notching up nine hit Uk albums and being voted artist of the decade by readers of British magazine Country Music People in 1980.
ON MAY 27...
IN 1930, New York’s Chrysler building opened; the world’s tallest manmade structure at 1,046ft, until the completion of the 1,250 ft Empire State Building 11 months later.
IN 1977, the Sex Pistols released God Save The Queen in Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee year. The BBC refused to play it.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Rodomontade (coined 1605-15)
A) Conversational pleasantness. B) Bragging. C) An insult so gracefully veiled as to seem unintended. Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED: To kick against the traces — to resist restraint; a trace is one of two chains, straps or harness lines attaching a horse to a carriage; ‘traces’ comes from the Latin tractus, meaning pulled.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.
Marilyn Monroe, U.S. actress (1926-1962)
JOKE OF THE DAY
i ACCUSED my friend of pouring glue on my weapons... He denied it, but I’m sticking to my guns.
Guess The Definition answer: B.