ON THIS DAY
August 12, 2024
FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE
AUGUST 12, 1980
THE Prime Minister heralded the right of council tenants to buy their own homes yesterday.
Mrs Thatcher handed over the deeds of the 12,000th council house sold by the Greater London Council. Her visit to the family buying the house came on the day the Government announced all council tenants will have the legal right to buy their homes from October 3. AUGUST 12, 1991
ELIZABETH TAYLOR has drawn up a prenuptial agreement for her eighth wedding, to construction worker
Larry Fortensky. Her 39-year-old fiance accepted the deal, which limits his share of her estimated £100million fortune to about £2 million should the marriage fail.
[They divorced in 1996.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
AMANDA REDMAN, 67. The Brighton-born actress, who starred in new Tricks and At Home With The Braithwaites, says her age means she is no longer asked to do photoshoots to promote her shows and: ‘I do resent being told: “Well, you’re very lucky to be playing a lead in a top show.” I think: “I’ve earned it.”’ GEORGE HAMILTON,
85. The US actor – frequently cast as a cad or hopeless romantic – has starred in 60 films, but said: ‘Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the better ones.’
BORN ON THIS DAY
GEORGE IV (1762-1830). The prince became Regent aged 48 – nine years before he became king – after his father was declared insane. PORTER WAGONER (1927-2007). The US country singer shot Dolly Parton to fame via his TV show. When Parton said she was leaving, he threatened to sue her. She responded by writing I Will Always Love you and performed it for him. He let her go.
ON AUGUST 12…
In 1938, Adolf Hitler launched the Mother’s Cross to encourage German women to have more children. In 2021, Summer Holiday and Sherlock star Una Stubbs died, aged 84.
WORD WIZARDRY
GUESS THE DEFINITION:
Treer (coined c1850)
A) Ill-balanced, shaky
B) A boy who avoids organised sports C) The lower part of a rainbow answer below
PHRASE EXPLAINED
As dead as a dodo – completely dead, extinct or long out of fashion; it relates to the dodo, a large flightless bird on the island of Mauritius which became extinct in the 1680s.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
you do not make the poor rich by making the rich poor. Lord (Nigel) Lawson, former Chancellor (1932-2023)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHY can’t dogs work a TV remote?
THEY always hit the paws button. Guess The Definition answer: b) a boy who avoids organised sports