Today I learned three things about American actor Jackie Coogan… the fourth I already knew. I discovered he was one of the first child stars in the history of Hollywood cinema and that he gave his name to a law to protect child performers from exploitation, particularly by their parents. The third thing I found…
The oldest player ever to win the Fifa World Cup turns 79 today, but surprisingly it’s almost 40 years ago that he achieved that status. At the 1982 World Cup in Spain goalkeeper Dino Zoff captained Italy to victory in the tournament at the age of 40 years, four months and 13 days… but to…
A week ago today it was the 59th anniversary of John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times during a five-hour mission, almost a year after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first man in space and the first to orbit the earth. Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in…
If he’d lived a couple of decades longer Spike Milligan would have turned 102 today, but as he didn’t he’s probably turning in his grave instead… aghast at the lunacy that has come to pass during the past 12 months. A famous one-liner from the former Goon and Q impresario went something along the lines:…
I know my father was a decent rugby player and an accomplished boxer during his national service, but I’m not really sure where his reverence for the world’s greatest distance runners emanated from. Growing up I remember him talking with great enthusiasm about the likes of Paavo Nurmi, Vladimir Kuts and Emil Zatopek… but one…
Just about every poker player on the planet knows that a pair of black aces and eights are “dead man’s hand” and that the reason harks back to when Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of the head while holding them in a game of five-card stud in Deadwood, South Dakota. But the…
At 6ft 9in tall there had to be a role for Ted Cassidy somewhere in Hollywood and he found it as one of the least talkative characters of the 1960s… a creepy butler by the name of Lurch, who tended to the needs of television’s zaniest family, the Addamses. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 87 years…
On this day 17 years ago the unthinkable happened, Volkswagen stopped making the “original” version of the Beetle, the iconic vehicle dreamed up in 1931 by Ferdinand Porsche that became Adolf Hitler’s vision of the “people’s car”. If ever a car oozed personality it was the Beetle, which first came off the production line in…
One of the earliest recollections I have as a teenager took place more than 45 years ago, probably due to the 1974 miner’s strike and the “three-day week” which interrupted lessons at our school. For some reason I can’t recall we were sent to the youth club attached to the school premises, where staff had…
Only five nations have qualified for the Rugby World Cup final since it was first held in New Zealand 33 years ago, when the All Blacks lifted the trophy with a 29-9 victory against France. Since that time those five countries have fought out the finals, but only one is conspicuous for never having claimed…
