ON THIS DAY
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE MAY 23, 1972
PRESIDENT Nixon’s Russian summit got off to a dramatic start today in Moscow. Soon after arriving he was closeted in unscheduled talks with Soviet communist party leader Leonid Brezhnev. Hopes are high for an arms pact. Mr Nixon is the first U.S. president to visit Russia’s capital.
MAY 23, 1981
THE Yorkshire Ripper is a sadistic sex murderer, not a madman, an Old Bailey jury decided yesterday. Now he will almost certainly be locked up for the rest of his life. Peter Sutcliffe, 34, killed 13 women and attacked seven more for kicks. Jurors rejected his claim of having a mission from God after hearing voices, although this had fooled four psychiatrists into diagnosing him as a paranoid schizophrenic.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
DAME JOAN COLLINS, 89. The Golden Globe-winning actress made her West end debut aged nine and was voted ‘Most Beautiful Girl in england’ at 18. Best known as Alexis Carrington in TV soap dynasty, she once supported Ukip, but has since described her politics as ‘Conservative Party, 1940s’. When asked if she worried about the 32-year age gap between herself and younger husband Percy Gibson, she said: ‘If he dies, he dies.’
MICHEL ROUX JR, 62. The chef from Kent was so frustrated at diners photographing meals at his Michelin-starred restaurant in 2017, he banned it. Though a judge on MasterChef: The Professionals, he fears there are too many TV cookery shows, which ‘can glorify the chef . . . I worry about that; it brings young people into our industry for the wrong reasons’.
BORN ON THIS DAY
CHARLES BARRY (1795-1860). The Westminster-born architect won a competition to design the Palace of Westminster, home of Parliament. A contemporary described his work on it as ‘the greatest combination of contrivance in planning, skill in construction, business management, and true art, that the world has seen’. He died ten years before its completion, and was buried in nearby Westminster Abbey.
BETTY GARRETT (19192011). The U.S. actress and singer starred with Frank Sinatra in On The Town. She also appeared in sitcom All In The Family. Garrett spent nearly 60 years on Broadway yet her Hollywood career was short, partly because of being blacklisted for links to the Communist Party.
ON MAY 23 . . .
IN 1915, Italy declared war on AustriaHungary in World War I. IN 2002, Madonna made her West end debut in the play Up For Grabs.
WORD WIZARDRY GUESS THE DEFINITION: Ruche (c 1820s)
A) Small cavity in a rock. B) To work in earth. C) Strip of pleated lace, net or muslin for trimming a dress. Answer below. PHRASE EXPLAINED To shake your booty: Meaning to dance vigorously; ‘booty’ here means ‘buttocks’ and derives from 1920s African-American slang, an alteration of ‘botty’ or bottom.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
Fear not those who argue but those who dodge. Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian writer (1830-1916)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT’S a duck’s favourite part of the news? The feather forecast. Guess The Definition answer: C. Compiled by ETAN SMALLMAN and ADAM JACOT DE BOINOD