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.

14th May

'Every director,' said Sam Goldwyn today in 1939, 'bites the hand that lays the golden egg.' He may have made more quotable gaffes than anybody else in Hollywood but what did he care? On the same day he bought out millionaires Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford to take control of the huge United Artists Studio.
'Bring on the empty wallets,' as the man himself almost said.

In other news ...
Lionel 'Buster' Crabbe, Navy frogman and oddball, disappeared today in 1956 while diving in Portsmouth Harbour near the Russian warship that brought Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev on a state visit. A headless, handless corpse was found some time later but it has still not definitely been identified as that of Commander Crabbe. Perhaps one day the former USSR will tell us what actually happened.