ON THIS DAY

FROM THE DAILY MAIL ARCHIVE

DECEMBER 5, 1998

NAOMI CAMPBELL has been charged by Toronto police with assaulting an ex- assistant. The supermodel, 28, from London will appear in court, accused of attacking Georgina Galanis while previously in Canada filming. [She pleaded guilty, got an absolute discharge and agreed to take anger management classes.]

DECEMBER 5, 2003

HIS MP’s salary is £56,358. but that is dwarfed by the £270,000 Michael Portillo raked in from other work — speaking engagements, TV appearances and business links — in the year. Some £15,000 of that was from a BBC show in which he stepped into the shoes of a Merseyside single mother of four for a week, looking after her children and working at Asda.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

LEWIS PUGH, 54. The endurance swimmer, from Plymouth, was the first to swim the length of the Thames in 2006, and the English Channel in 2018. In September, he swam all along the Hudson River in the u.S. to raise awareness of water quality. Pugh said: ‘I have swum with great white sharks, hippos, crocs, leopard seals…’ JOSE CARRERAS, 77. The Spanish opera star, who had two UK No 1 albums with the Three Tenors (including Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo), began performing in his mother’s hair salon. He said: ‘I’m a small man, but you sing with the muscles, not the fat. Size has nothing to do with the voice.’

BORN ON THIS DAY

JOAN DIDION (1934-2021). The u.S. author and journalist co- wrote the screenplay for the 1976 film A Star Is born. She wrote The Year Of Magical Thinking, about losing her husband John in 2003 days after their daughter Quintana Roo was put into a coma after developing septic shock. Didion’s daughter died a year and a half later, aged 39. The writer said: ‘We tell ourselves stories in order to live.’ EMERIC PRESSBURGER (1902-1988). The Hungarian-born british filmmaker worked with Michael Powell on hits The Life And Death Of Colonel blimp and The Red Shoes. He won an Oscar for 49th Parallel. Pressburger was homeless in berlin before publishing his first short story in 1928 and losing his scriptwriting job in a Nazi purge of Jewish employees.

ON DECEMBER 5. . .

IN 1952, the five-day Great Smog of London began, which killed thousands of people.

IN 2011, Adele’s 21 became the biggest-selling album of the century.

WORD WIZARDRY

GUESS THE DEFINITION

Dretch (c 900)

A) A wretched slob.

B) Wool from a dead sheep.

C) To be troubled in sleep. answer below.

PHRASE EXPLAINED

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush: meaning it’s better to have a lesser but certain advantage than a greater one that may come to nothing. It dates to medieval falconry where a bird in the hand (the falcon) was a valuable asset and worth more than two in the bush (the prey).

QUOTE FOR TODAY

Be the first to say something obvious and achieve immortality.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, Austrian novelist (1830-1916)

JOKE OF THE DAY

WHY do owls never go courting in the rain? because it’s too wet to woo. Guess The Definition answer: c.