Dame Diana Rigg
July 20, 2008
Turns 70 today. Where I used to work, the organization’s President gave me the set of Hardy she had carried with her through boarding school in Switzerland. ” I learned all I know of sex from Tess of the d’Urbervilles.” For men of my generation – and I daresay quite a few women – we [...]


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 recollect [Hodge] 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.'