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Tag Archives: Samuel Johnson

Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy Bluffer’s Guide

Last weekend I played host to a particularly friendly cricket match – by which I mean that both teams had no clue what they were doing. The opposition, Rain Men, were captained by my friend and usual team-mate Simon, whose excuse was that he’d only played the game 263 times previously. The other captain was, […]

On ranting

If there’s one thing I just can’t abide, it’s ranters. Not the C17th religious nonconformists. Folk who can’t shut up about things. You know the type. The workplace philosophers; the shouters at the TV; people in whose eyes you see the glint of socialist dictatorship. They come in every walk of life. Stupid boxers (*tautology […]

Brief lives: Samuel Derrick

Samuel Derrick (1724-69), was an Irish writer, friend of Dr Johnson, Boswell, and Tobias Smollett, and master of the ceremonies at both Bath and Tunbridge Wells. He published, among other works: The Dramatic Censor, No. 1; Sylla, a dramatic entertainment, from the French of Frederick II of Prussia; A Voyage from the Moon, from the […]

Dr Johnfon’s Ducktionary – or; fome juvenilia, revifed upon mature confideration

In this place (as oppofed to that) Is repofited horizontally a Hearty, wholefome and falubrious Young male exemplum of fub-genus Water fowl (be it wild or be it tame), The accufative fingular of which Samuel Johnson – Artium Magifter, Legum Doctor (honoris caufa) – Did trample and crufh most Contemptibly beneath his foot; Suppofing it […]