ON THIS DAY
July 9 2021
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE JUly 9, 1973
NEWLY-wed actress Diana Rigg, who always vowed she would never marry, held hands with her husband yesterday. She said: ‘For the first time in my life I have met a man who is my match.’ The man Diana fell for is 40-year-old Israeli artist Menachem Gueffen.
JULY 9, 1983
BRITAIN’S first microchip baby was born yesterday, thanks to a £10,000 computer. Parents Beth and Roger Hornett hugged their new baby at the Hammersmith Hospital. Consultant Robert winston and his team used the computer to work out which couples are most suitable to become test tube parents.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PAUL MERTON, 64. The Bafta-winning absurdist comedian has been a panellist on radio show Just A Minute and TV’s Have I Got News for You for more than 30 years. He was born Paul Martin but had to pick a new name to get an Equity card and chose the South London district in which he was brought up.
KELLY McGILLIS, 64. The American actress starred in 1980s classics witness and The Accused. She said she never wanted to play her most famous role, as Tom Cruise’s love interest in Top Gun, because ‘it wasn’t about acting, it was about being a cartoon character’. Asked why she had not been invited to appear in the sequel, due for release this year, she said: ‘I’m old and I’m fat and I look ageappropriate for what my age is, and that is not what that whole scene is about.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
DONALD RUMSFELD (1932-2021). The U.S. politician was, at 43, the youngest-ever defence secretary, under Gerald Ford. He took the post again, this time as the oldest, under George w. Bush, persuading the President to launch the Iraq war. Rumsfeld, who died last week, was known as Rummy to his friends, while President Nixon described him as ‘a ruthless little bastard’.
OLIVER SACKS (1933-2015). The Londonborn neurologist and writer was dubbed the ‘poet laureate of medicine’. His memoir Awakenings inspired a play by Harold Pinter and a film, starring Robin williams. He also wrote The Man who Mistook His wife For A Hat, based on case histories of his patients.
ON JULY 9 . . .
IN 1816, Argentina declared independence from Spain. IN 1962, Bob Dylan recorded Blowin’ In The wind.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Scombroid (c 19th century)
A) An urchin. B) More on one side than on the other, ill-balanced, shaky. C) Shaped like a mackerel. answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED Jump the gun: meaning to take premature action, with the object of gaining an unfair advantage; it came from early 1900s track and field races in reference to athletes starting the race before the gun was fired (to signal the start).
QUOTE FOR TODAY
a bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise.
A.A. Milne, English author (1882-1956)
JOKE OF THE DAY
HOW did the musician catch his fish? He castanet. Guess The Definition answer: C