Todd Bernhardt

Encyclopedia topics

Todd Bernhardt has written a summary for this topic:

Annotations and comments

Todd Bernhardt has posted 946 annotations/comments since 8 January 2003.

Comments

First Reading

About Wednesday 15 October 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: bad oysters

I don't know if we'll need to wait until tomorrow ... in past episodes, bad oysters made their reappearance rather quickly!

About Wednesday 15 October 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

My goodness, the energy of this man!

Two virtually sleepless nights (or, at least very restless ones), and he still has the steel to ride from Brampton to London in one day. Let's hope that his "old troubles" do not resurface in a day or two as a result of this...

About Monday 13 October 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

A melancholy walk, and a melancholy entry...

I feel sorry for Sam today. It's never a good feeling to have to go to court, even when you do have all your ducks in a row, and he's got the added pressure of significant doubts about his ducks. Plus, as Mr. Hamilton points out above, there's the complication of it being an interfamily affair.

About Saturday 11 October 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: "broil"

In my American experience, to broil means to heat something from above as it sits on a slotted pan, so the juices can drip away. Grilling, in my experience, heats from below, and the juices drip down (usually onto the heat source).

I'm with Bradford -- could someone with access to L&M or some other source of knowledge explain exactly what Sam's plotting for Piggott?

About Sunday 28 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: coal-raking

I think the frustration on the part of the anti-dementia crowd (of which I count myself one) is that we're trying to make sure that we draw conclusions about Sam and the others around him based only on hard evidence. Just as we shouldn't impose our moral or other values on Sam and his life/time, we shouldn't impose subjective theories about people, personalities, or events without objective reasons, falling prey to the temptations of gestalt psychology and creating patterns where there really is no concrete justification for them.

About Tuesday 30 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

Great summation, with many questions answered (for example, that Sandwich did indeed suggest alterations to the Pepys homestead in Brampton).

"Things are all quiett, but the King poor, and no hopes almost of his being otherwise, by which things will go to rack, especially in the Navy."

Shades of things to come...

About Thursday 25 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"Up betimes..."

-- "and to my workmen" (25 Sept)
-- "and among my workmen" (24 Sept)
-- "and with my workmen" (23 Sept)
-- "among my workmen" (22 Sept)

Something tells me Sam is anxious to get this work done...

Wonder how old the child of Mrs. Lemon's nurse was? Very strange indeed.

About Tuesday 23 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: Dieu te regarde

The 17th century's (and others') Big Brother...

He knows when you are sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows when you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake...

About Monday 22 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

What exactly does Sam mean by a "a great fit of colic" in this instance? Is it "wind"? Or something else?

Interesting use of "catched." And how strange to us, with our modern knowledge of health, that he would think he could catch cold by removing his stockings...

About Saturday 20 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: Snow and Tufte

Monsieur Hamilton, Tufte does in fact know about Snow, calling his graphic "an early and most worthy use of a map to chart patterns of disease" in the book you cite. He also devotes 10 pages in his book "Visual Explanations" to Snow and the brilliance of his work, even pointing out flaws in others' analysis of his data and using it to show how numbers can be "massaged" to "mask or even distort the true story of the data."

That said, I think Minard's chart (which I have hung in my office), with the six variables it displays, is still the champ when it comes to statistical graphics. FWIW.

(More on that chart here: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/… )

About Monday 8 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

The Royal Flush!!

You crack me up, Mr. C. That, on top of the "P household" and "Batten down the hatch" comments, makes me think you have a bright future at stand-up...

About A new Pepys walk around Westminster

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

I've posted some photos that I took while doing Glyn's City walk, which I was lucky enough to do back in June. You can find the photos at:
http://www.smartgroups.com/pictur…

It'll probably help if you read along with Glyn's walk. I've put the photos up in roughly the same order that the walk lists them. There are a few extra photos around the Tower area, including some of St. Olave's.

If anyone's interested in getting full-sized versions of any of the photos, or of some others that I took (I have a nice one of Tower Bridge as the wallpaper on my computer right now), let me know, and I'll e-mail them to you directly.

Hopefully I'll be able to compile and post the Westminster-walk pictures in several weeks. I'll let the group know when they're up there.

My thanks again to Glyn for writing these comprehensive, enjoyable and informative walks, and for playing tour guide to me for part of the day I was in The City!

About Saturday 6 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

re: "in order to sweat a little away the cold"

I think he lay long in bed under heavy covers in warm weather to work up his sweat (the old sweating-out/away a fever trick) ... no sauna for Sam.

Language Hat (or others), did "cloyed" have an additional meaning back then (of "bound" or constipated), or was it the modern meaning of feeling full to the point of surfeit?

About Wednesday 3 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"He tells me, what I heard confirmed since..."

Ah, that's our Sam, the good journalist. Get your two independent sources before reporting the news...

About Wednesday 3 September 1662

Todd Bernhardt  •  Link

"but neither he nor I drank any of the wine we called for..."

Interesting! Could politics be at play here? Sam calls for wine, hoping to loosen the good doctor's lips with strong drink (while drinking none himself), while the good doctor is astute enough to do the same? I wonder ... perhaps we're seeing another reason for Sam's abstinence.