Just a Minute

I try to avoid hesitation, repetition, and deviation. I fail lamentably with deviation and there is an element of repetition today.

In December 2015 I found a statue of Queen Victoria in Kensington Gardens that talks: Something Old, Something New. This week, outside Samuel Johnson’s house tucked away off Fleet Street, I saw a bronze of his favourite cat, Hodge, sitting on a copy of his master’s dictionary and with his favourite food, oysters, before him. James Boswell has this to say about Johnson and Hodge:

Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he showed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, “Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;” and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, “but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.”

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. “Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.” And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, “But Hodge shan’t be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.”

Now Hodge can speak for himself, brought to life by Nicholas Parsons, presenter of Just a Minute on Radio 4. You can hear him here.

I also went into St Bride’s, also off Fleet Street, for the first time. Three things I found out:

1. The church is called after St Brigid who founded a convent in Kildare in 470 AD.
2. There is a bust of Virginia Dare, the first child born in the Americas to English parents. They were married at St Bride’s in 1585.
3. A baker near Ludgate Circus wanted to create a spectacular cake for his wedding. He drew inspiration from Wren’s octagonal spire and baked the first tiered wedding cake.