Looking Back - Archer Wins Record Damages

On this day in 1987, former deputy chair of the Conservative Party, Jeffrey Archer, was awarded record libel damages at the High Court.

The Daily Star newspaper was ordered to pay the MP £500,000 damages along with £700,000 costs, for a front page story the previous November alleging Mr Archer had paid to have sex with a prostitute.

The total bill of £1.2m made it the fourth most most expensive libel action ever. Such was the depth of the three week trial, Judge Mr Justice Caulfied spoke of the "enormous burden" carried by the jury and excused them from jury service for fifteen years. Daily Star editor Lloyd Turner would only say his paper's owners, Express Newspapers, would be appealing.

The story about Mr Archer paying prostitute Monica Cooghlan £2,000 to go on holiday first appeared in the News of the World in October 1986 and led to his resignation as vice-chair of ther Conservative Party. Five days later the Daily Star compounded the libel by publishing further details of allegations about Mr Archer paying Miss Cooghlan £50 for sex and £20 for extra time' in the September.

In court Mr Archer told the jury he was "an honourable fool" tricked into giving Ms Coghlan money as the newpapers attempted to spoil his political career.

Jeffrey Archer was made a life peer in 1992 for his services to the Conservative Party.

He was involved in an insider dealing scandal in 1994.

In 1999 Archer qwas forced to withdraw from the London mayoral race after his one-time friend Ted Francis revealed he had asked him to provide a false alibi in the 1987 trial. He was also expelled from the Conservative Party for five years.

Archer was eventually in court accused of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to four years in jail.

For a brief look at Jeffrey Archer's rise to fame, click the video link below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6520000/newsid_6529100/6529157.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1

Why Boy's Need Parents

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820. The daughter of upper-class British parents, Nightingale pursued a career in nursing, despite family objections, believing it to be God's will. In 1851 she received her initial training in Kaiserworth at a hospital run by an order of Protestant Deaconesses. Two years later she gained further experience as the superintendent at the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen in London, England.
After reading a series of correspondence from the London Times in 1854 on the plight of wounded soldiers fighting in the Crimea, Nightingale asked the British secretary of war to secure her entrance into the military hospitals at Scutari, Turkey. He not only granted her permission but designated her the head of an official delegation of nurses. Nightingale worked for the next two years to improve the sanitary conditions of army hospitals and to reorganize their administration. The Times immortalised her as the "Lady with the Lamp"because she ministered to the soldiers throughout the night.
Upon her return to England, Nightingale conducted an exhaustive study of the health of the British army and created a plan for reform that she compiled into a five-hundred-page report entitled Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army (1858). In 1859 she published Notes on Hospitals, which was followed in 1860 by Notes on Nursing: What It Is And What It Is Not. That same year she established a nursing school at St. Thomas's Hospital in London.
Nightingale wanted to make nursing a respectable profession and believed that nurses should be trained in science. She also advocated strict discipline, an attention to cleanliness, and felt that nurses should possess an innate empathy for their patients. Although Nightingale became an invalid following her stay in the Crimea, she remained an influential leader in public health policies related to hospital administration until her death on August, 1910.

Patty McGuire's Pub

Sisters Mary Catherine, Maria Theresa, Katherine Marie, Rose Frances and Mary Kathleen left the Convent on a trip to St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. It was hot and humid in town and their traditional garb was making them so uncomfortable they decided to stop in at Patty McGuire's Pub for a cold soft drink.

Patty had recently added special legs to his bar stools, which were the talk of the fashionable east side neighbourhood. All five Nuns sat up at he bar and were enjoying their Cokes when Monsignor Riley and Father McGinty entered the bar through the front door.

They, too, came for a cold drink and were shocked and almost fainted at what they saw.

GIVE US A SENSE OF HUMOUR LORD,

GIVE US THE GRACE TO SEE A JOKE,

TO GET SOME HUMOUR OUT OF LIFE,

AND PASS IT ON TO OTHER FOLK.

That's When The Fight Started

I tried to talk my wife into buying a case of Miller Lite for £12.
Instead she bought a jar of cold cream for £7.
I told her the beer would make her look better at night than the cold cream

That's when the fight started...

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