THE LIST

EXCUSES: reporters from the News of the World never stayed long enough to participate in debauchery but "made their excuses and left"; Lord Lucan was "unconscious" when his nanny was murdered; delays to trains in the winter of 1990/1991 were because British Rail's snow ploughs could not deal with "the wrong kind of snow" (all subsequent wrong-kind-ofs are apocryphal or post-modern); Ernest Saunders couldn't complete his sentence at Ford open prison because he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease; "a goat has eaten the invoices" a Welsh engineering firm told its creditors; Alan Bond couldn't appear in court last year because he was suffering from depression; Nick Leeson wasn't fleeing (but celebrating his birthday in Malaysia) when Barings bank failed; Jonathan Aitken didn't know about the arms deal because he left the meeting at lunch time.

TODAY is the feast day of Saint Francis of Paola, who from the age of 15 lived as a hermit in a cave in Calabria, southern Italy in the 15th century. When other young men joined him, the local people built them a church and a monastery and his order, the Minim Friars, was started. Francis had the gift of miracles, some of which are depicted in murals which can be seen at his church in Paola. They illustrate, among other miracles, Francis helping an old woman boil her beans by a shot of lightning from his fingers, and Francis crossing the Messina Straits on a cloak. Having been summoned by the dying Louis XI to save his life, Francis left Calabria for France. The king died soon after his arrival but the saint was credited with the miracle of making him accept death with fortitude. He stayed in France 25 years and died, aged 91, in 1507.

2 April, 1805: Hans Christian Anderson (above), Danish author, was born in Odense. The life of this teller of fairytales was itself something of a fairytale. The son of a poor shoemaker, Hans went to Copenhagen hoping to work in the theatre but was rejected because of his lack of education. His talents, however, proved to lie in poetry and storytelling and with the help of friends and a pension from the King he embarked on a highly successful literary career. He was the creator of such memorable tales as The Snow Queen, The Ugly Duckling and The Emperor's New Clothes. He died in 1875 some 30 years after writing his autobiography.