04 January 2003

Dear Mary… Q. A couple of years ago you advised readers to minimise present-buying stress at Christmas by finding something that would be acceptable to people of all age ranges and simply buying up said item in bulk. This year I took your advice and feel I must share with readers the great success that

I lapped up Liza Picard’s Dr Johnson’s London on holiday, and now someone (not my husband) has given me her Restoration London for Christmas. In a small section on the words used in the Restoration period, she brings in two expressions that she has come across in contemporary books, not in secondary sources such as