November 2007

I’d heard the expression a few years back in a Mark Gatiss play when a character mentions that ‘the love of strong ale played the merry andrew with my senses’.

It turns out there really was a Merry Andrew, he was a Tudor era physician named Dr. Andrew Borde – born in Sussex. He wrote some books including what seems to be England’s first comic novel. I suppose someone had to do it. He grew increasingly eccentric in his old age and was known for giving comic speeches on medicine at country fairs. He also said:

I leue al water and take to myself good ale.

….that’s my kind of historical figure.

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