ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE OCTOBER 27, 1951
WINSTON CHurCHILL was received by the King at Buckingham Palace last night, i mmediately after Mr Attlee’s resignation, and took office as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury [for the second time]. Mr Churchill — who will be 77 on November 30 — spoke of ‘a growing sense of the need to put Britain back in her place’ and will act swiftly to create a broad-based Government.
OCTOBER 27, 1966
THE Prince of Wales, whose nose was broken in a rugger match at Gordonstoun School on Monday, was back in class yesterday. A Buckingham Palace official said: ‘His nose is not twisted in any way.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JOHN CLEESE, 81, right. The actor, writer and comedian from Westonsuper- Mare co- created Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers. Cleese’ s grandfather changed his surname by deed poll from Cheese. In Who’s Who, he lists his recreations as ‘ gluttony’ and ‘sloth’. He calls his fourth wife, Jennifer Wade, ‘fish’, because she is ‘the most beautiful swimmer I’ve ever seen’.
KELLy OSBOurNE, 36. The daughter of Black Sabbath’s Ozzy and The X Factor’s Sharon shot to fame on reality show The Osbournes and had a No 1 hit, Changes, with her dad in 2003. She once wore diamond-dusted nail polish worth £160,000 to the Emmy awards.
BORN ON THIS DAY
SyLvIA PLATH (1932-1963). The American published her first poem aged just eight. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes soon after meeting him at a Cambridge university party at which she bit him on the cheek, drawing blood. They wed on June 16, in honour of the day on which all the events in James Joyce’s ulysses take place. Plath took her own life aged 30.
DyLAN THOMAS (19141953), right. The Welsh writer of under Milk Wood and the poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night was hailed as ‘the greatest living poet in the English language’. However, he was also described by Time magazine as a ‘blubber-lipped, gooseberry- eyed Welsh poet’ — shortly before his death aged 39 after years of heavy drinking.
ON OCTOBER 27…
IN 1964, singers Cher and Sonny Bono performed their own unofficial marriage ceremony in a Mexico hotel room. IN 2014, the final British combat troops left Afghanistan, after 13 years of fighting.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Diastole (1575) A) The dilatation or relaxation of the heart muscle. B) A long robe. C) Fair words without sincere intention. Answer below PHRASE EXPLAINED Round up the usual suspects — meaning in a light-hearted way to gather together a group of people; it is a famous line of dialogue from the 1942 film Casablanca.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.
Quentin Crisp, English writer (1908-1999)
JOKE OF THE DAY
I’M reading a book about anti-gravity. It’s impossible to put down.
Guess The Definition answer: A.