Dr Johnson
Good biographers make the best companions
Strange, when your own life flatlines, the way in which other lives become suddenly more interesting. I have been retreating…
Oliver Goldsmith: the most fascinating bore in literature
On 10 April 1772, the biographer James Boswell recorded in his diary that he had hugged himself with pleasure on…
When Dr Johnson went to Tahrir Square
Goodness knows what the Great Cham would have made of Radio 4 airing an adapted version of his philosophical fable,…
A toast to all bottles
Where two or three British males are gathered together, the agenda often includes a glass or two. One thing can…
