20th September

Today in 1959, Nikita Khrushchev was denied access to Disneyland for security reasons. The actual reason was that none of the Mickey Mouse actors (Mickey Mice actors ...???) wanted to hug him.

And who can blame them?

In other news ...

It's a perfect day for sailors today. In 1519, Ferdy ('I tell you the world is round') Magellan set sail from Seville with a little fleet of five ships. And in 1580, Frankie ('Yes, it is and it all belongs to England') Drake came back with five ships having circumcized the globe.

All teachers reading this will know that the above is not a typo - in this specific case it is a quote from an exam paper from Leavon Clutterbuck (not his real name) of 7 Eff Pee, c. 1983.

29th July

One of those great non events of History took place today in 1588. The largest invasion force ever unleashed against England, the Armada, was on its way and one of the fleet commanders, Francis Drake, insisted on playing bowls rather than getting out there to intercept it.

The bowls story may well be pure fiction, but if the Armada had managed to link up with the army of the Duke of Parma waiting in the Netherlands and then landed in England, Drake would stand condemned today as the vainglorious idiot he was and you would be reading this in Spanish.

In other news ...
Poor old David Niven shuffled off the mortal coil today in 1983. The quintessential Englishman, his on-screen officer and gentleman roles, his little moey and charming smile totally belied the fact that he was a quintessential Englishman, with a little moey and a charming smile

4th April

Francis Drake became Sir Francis Drake today in 1581 when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth at Deptford on the deck of his ship, the Pelican, renamed the Golden Hind. He had left Plymouth on 13 December 1577 with 5 ships and a total crew of 160, as well as various sponsors.
He was now able to state conclusively that the world was indeed round as Magellan had already proved and Columbus believed. Presumably, if Drake had been knighted on 1 April, he would have told the queen the earth was flat.

In other news ...
Ben Hur won 11 Oscars today in 1960 and rightly so. I was still of very tender years when I saw this one and I loved every minute. There was rugged, gritty Charlton Heston, every boy's hero; gorgeous Haya Harareet as the love interest; Stephen Boyd as a thoroughly nasty Messala and of course that superb chariot race which still has me on the edge of my seat. it was probably the last film that coyly didn't show the face of Christ - just his lovely red hair from the back. For film trivia buffs and quiz compilers out there, the actor who played him was Claude Heater and wasn't even in the credits. Sheik Ilderim was played by Welshman Hugh Griffith and the wise man Balthazar by a Scotsman, Findlay Currie, but they were both excellent. Add in the Irish Stephen Boyd and it should come as no surprise to learn that Pontius Pilate (boo! hiss!) was played by an Australian, the onomatopoeic Frank Thring.

The only other film to do as well in Oscar terms was Titanic. Oh per-lease!