A sell-out crowd gathered at this evening’s Spectator event: Boris Johnson in discussion with Andrew Neil about his book on Winston Churchill. Here is my summary of BoJo’s main points:-
- Churchill: strength through drink. He wrote more words than Dickens and Shakespeare combined, and did it all on the most incredible regime involving a pint of Pol Roger champagne a day. He’d drink red wine, white wine, brandy, cigars - then pace up and down in his study and start to compose at 10pm. I don’t know any modern journalist, tough species though they are, who could do that. He could go on until 3am producing perfectly excogitated sentences for the embattled typists.
- Churchill’s suicidal courage. His physical bravery would lead most people nowadays to say he was as mad as a box of frogs.
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