ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
AUGUST 14, 1950 THE King left London for Balmoral last night before the expected birth of his second grandchild [Princess Anne]. He had already delayed his departure by three days, but Princess Elizabeth asked him not to put off his holiday any further on her account. AUGUST 14, 1964 POLICE dog Rex kept 7,000 screaming teenagers at bay when they tried to rush the stage where the Rolling Stones played last night. Rex, the only police dog on the Isle of Man, guarded the stage at the Palace Ballroom, Douglas. Ambulancemen worked full out treating 70 girls and one man for fainting, hysteria, cuts and scratches.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
STEVE MARTIN, 75. The American comedian and actor, who starred in The Jerk and Roxanne, once dreamed of becoming a philosophy professor. He had business cards printed that read: ‘This certifies that you have had a personal encounter with me and that you found me warm, polite, intelligent and funny.’
MILA KUNIS, 37. The Ukrainian-born American actress starred in Black Swan and Oz The Great And Powerful. Her family came to the U.S. when she was seven, with just $250. Kunis did not speak any English and said she ‘cried every day’ at school for a year and felt ‘blind and deaf’. She is an ex of Macaulay Culkin and is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.
BORN ON THIS DAY
BUDDy GRECO (1926-2017). The American saloon singer began learning the piano at four — the same age he made his debut on the radio. Greco, who had five wives and eight children, sold more than a million copies of his hits The Lady Is A Tramp and Oh Look AThere, Ain’t She Pretty. He had a home in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, and called Southend ‘the greatest little city in the world’.
ELENA BALTACHA (19832014). The Ukrainian-born tennis star became British No.1 after her footballer father moved the family to the UK so he could play for Ipswich Town. She said she hoped to play for five more years, just a year before discovering that the chronic liver condition with which she had been diagnosed at 19 had led to cancer.
ON AUGUST 14…
IN 1995, the ‘Battle of Britpop’ began when music rivals Oasis and Blur released singles on the same day. Blur’s Country House beat Roll With It to the top of the charts.
IN 2000, BBC quiz show The Weakest Link, hosted by Anne Robinson, was launched.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: smutch (c 1525) a) To smudge, stain or soil. b) A fool, an idiot. c) The act of verbally belittling someone. (Answer below)
PHRASE EXPLAINED
Manna from heaven — refers to something that arrives unexpectedly to help someone out of their difficulties; ‘manna’ was the name in the Book of Exodus in the Bible for miraculous food found by the Israelites on their exodus from Egypt.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.
Adrian Mitchell, English poet (1932-2008)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a cow with no legs? Ground beef.
Guess The Definition answer: A