Boris on Sam

I very much enjoyed Radio 4's Great Lives on with Boris Johnson on Samuel Johnson on BBC i player.

This post is one long spoiler!

The programme begins with Matthew Paris re-telling an anecdote about Sam’s yabber-dabber-do sense of fun, rolling down a hill as a colossal middle-aged man.

Boris describes Sam as Paul Merton mixed with Jeremy Paxman, the Regis Professor of Greek and a first-rate poet.

If the programme can be believed, the Doctor was complicated man, a deeply humane realistic minimalist Conservative who took the part of the poor, the mad and those on the margins of society. Sensitive and compassionate, he abominated slavery with violence. He was angry, impatient, insightful, generous, intense, courageous and sincere. A tormented genius he hated cant, flim-flam, hypocrisy and idle nonsense. He combined Anglo-Saxon gruffness with massive erudition and specialised in rudeness. He was always resentful of those who were successful with less mental equipment than he had! He was afflicted with constitutional melancholia, very severe clinical depression and mental crises. He is often thought to have suffered from Turret’s Syndrome. He disliked talking about himself yet he was fantastically competitive. He feasted on guilt that consumed him. Longing for recognition, he always performed. He was hyperbolic, earnest and serious with a great sometimes bizarre sense of humour. He had an auto-flaggalent streak, obsessive compulsive, driven, he feared his own behaviour, feeling lazy, thinking he was indolent, not honouring God. His application and concentration were fantastic though wasted lots of time, eventually he worked very fast, driven by deadlines. He died in terror of hell and in very great pain.