ON THIS DAY
FEBRUARY 18, 2022
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE FEBRUARY 18, 1978
PRESIDENT NIXON wanted people to believe he was mad, his former Chief of Staff H.r. Haldeman reveals in his book, The Ends Of Power. He believed it gave him an advantage over his opponents if they thought the occupant of the White House was certifiably uncontrollable.
FEBRUARY 18, 2005
PRINCE CHARLES’S plans to marry Camilla Parker Bowles amid the grandeur of Windsor Castle were in ruins last night. Clarence House was forced to admit that nobody within the royal entourage had thought to check that a civil wedding could take place within the castle. They will marry in a register office.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
CYBILL SHEPHERD, 72. The Golden Globe-winning U.S. actress started as a model after becoming Miss Teenage Memphis. She had an affair with Elvis Presley, who she said ‘as a lover, was... indescribable. It was 1972, and all the guys wore cheap cologne, apart from him. He smelled soapy, and sweet, like sugar and sweat.’
MICHAEL BUERK, 76. The former BBC newsreader, who has reported from 53 countries, recently complained that radio 4 had a ‘hopeless yearning to connect with yoof’. When Buerk said men had become little more than ‘sperm donors’ in a femaledominated society, colleague Anna Ford called him a ‘poor miserable old bat’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
GEORGE KENNEDY (1925-2016). Having served under General George Patton in World War II, the U.S. actor played him in the 1978 film Brass Target. He was military adviser on sitcom The Phil Silvers Show and one day was asked to stand in for an actor by a producer who said: ‘Hey, you are a really big guy, and you look like you could play a bad guy.’ From then he appeared in more than 200 films and TV shows.
PHYLLIS CALVERT (1915-2002). The London-born ‘virtuous heroine of wartime melodramas’ made her first film at 12. Calvert insisted on carrying on filming while German air raids on London were at their peak. She said in 1995: ‘My acting has improved with age. I can’t look at any of my old films — I was frightful.’
ON FEBRUARY 18…
IN 1930, U.S. astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. IN 1965, The kinks were at no. 1 with Tired Of Waiting For You.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION: Suture (c1540) A) The joining of a wound by stitches. B) A cassock; a clerical coat. C) The skin under the throat of animals.
Answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED To keep your cards close to your chest:
Meaning to be secretive or discreet; the phrase refers to cards in a card game, which when held close to one’s chest, ensures no one can look at them
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.
Frank Zappa, U.S. rock musician (1940-1993)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY did the doughnut visit the dentist? It needed a chocolate filling.
Guess The Definition answer: A.