At #3 is Bobby Darin's 'Multiplication':
Giles cartoon for this week: police recruitment
Concerns had been voiced for some time about the shortage of officers in the Metropolitan Police, as in e.g. these queries in Parliament from April and November 1961:
There was a Royal Commission in progress to review policing arragements generally, which produced a final report in May 1962 with 111 recommendations. One suggestion considered was to establish a centralised police force but the Home Secretary told Parliament that 'all the Commissioners except one recognised as even more cogent the advantages of local administration, and they came down firmly against a national police service.'
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1963/may/09/royal-commission-on-the-police-report
These criminals are relatively short in stature, perhaps because of their poor diet in childhood, which the postwar Labour government sought to address. In the 1980s a teaching colleague noted the variation in height of a class of young secondary schoolchildren and commented that it was a sign of the decline in the Welfare State.
Giles had a keen eye for detail. Both miscreants are wearing fashionable boots of the time - the one in front sports pointy-toed 'winklepickers' which some said were handy in a fight; the blond wears what look like Chelsea boots with 'Cuban heels' and apparently they have spurs attached - also a fighting asset, perhaps. Their jackets appear to be zip-up 'windcheaters' and both wear 'drainpipe trousers'.
Some memorable events (via Wikipedia):
21 January: 'The Organization of American States (OAS) began its Eighth Meeting of Consultation of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in the course of which the United States agreed to resume aid to Haiti in return for its support of sanctions against Cuba. Haiti's participation was essential because the United States was a vote short of having the 2/3rds majority of the 21 member nations.'
22 January: 'The Organisation Armée Secrète (OAS), opposed to the independence of Algeria, bombed the French Foreign Ministry, by placing a time bomb inside a truck that was going into the compound. A mailroom worker was killed, and three people were seriously injured by the shattering of hundreds of windows at the Quai d'Orsay. Gunmen from the OAS also kidnapped a member of Parliament, Dr. Paul Mainguy, who was rescued that afternoon by French police.'
23 January: 'American inventor Thomas Townsend Brown received U.S. Patent 3,018,394 for an "Electro-kinetic Transducer", a means of using an electric field as a means of propulsion of aircraft.'
24 January:
- 'The East German government instituted conscription into its armed forces, which formerly had been filled by volunteers. Western sources speculated that the East Germans had waited until the completion of the Berlin Wall before announcing the draft.'
- 'Brian Epstein made a verbal contract with the four members of The Beatles, becoming their manager in return for receiving up to 25 percent of their gross earnings.'
- 'An attempt by the United States, to launch five satellites into orbit from the same rocket, failed when the final stage of the Thor-Able-Star rocket failed to provide sufficient thrust to break the pull of gravity. Falling into the Gulf of Mexico "well south of Cuba" were the 80 foot rocket and the satellites SR-4, Injun II, Lofti II, Secor and Surcal, worth $3,500,000 altogether.'
25 January: 'Anandyn Amar, who had served twice as Prime Minister of Mongolia (1928–30 and 1936–39) and Chairman of the Presidium of State (1932–36) before becoming a victim of a purge by Joseph Stalin, was posthumously rehabilitated, more than 20 years after his execution by the Soviet Union on July 27, 1941.'
26 January: 'The American space probe Ranger 3 was launched from Cape Canaveral at 3:30 pm local time with the objective of duplicating the Soviet feat of landing a satellite on the Moon. Hours later, NASA announced that the Atlas rocket had hurled Ranger 3 into its trajectory too quickly, and that the probe would miss its target by 22,000 miles. Intersecting the Moon's orbit after 50 hours instead of the planned 66 hours, the spacecraft arrived too soon, got no closer than 22,862 miles from the Moon and went into orbit around the sun.'
27 January:
- 'With the publication of a January 15 decree of the Supreme Soviet, the Soviet Union changed all remaining street names and place names honoring Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Georgi Malenkov, and Kliment Voroshilov two months after the five aides to Joseph Stalin had been denounced by the Soviet Communist Party.[87] The Azerbaijan SSR city of Molotov would become Oktyabrkend, and the city of Perm had reverted to its name after Molotov's ouster in 1957; Voroshilovgrad was renamed Luhansk and Voroshilov in the far east became Ussuriysk.'
- 'The planned 7:30 am launch of Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr. was postponed after the countdown clock stopped 20 minutes before liftoff. Glenn had been in the capsule since 5:10 am and was prepared to become the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the Earth, while much of the nation watched live coverage. After technical difficulties halted the countdown, the skies became overcast with thick cloud cover, and the mission was scrubbed at 9:20 am.'
- 'At a major conference in Beijing, Liu Shaoqi, President of the People's Republic of China, criticized the "Great Leap Forward" economic policies of Party Chairman Mao Zedong. "People do not have enough food, clothes or other essentials... agricultural output has dropped tremendously," Liu told the assembly, adding "There is not only no Great Leap Forward, but a great deal of falling backward." Chairman Mao made a rare self-criticism three days later, and eventually took revenge on Liu, who disappeared in 1968 and reportedly died in 1969.'
UK chart hits, week ending 27 January 1962 (tracks in italics have been featured previously)
Htp: Clint's labour-of love compilation https://www.sixtiescity.net/charts/61chart.htm
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