Morning folks. Boris Johnson, your absconding blogger, reporting for duty.
A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS
We went out to the cinema the other night, and all we could see was something
called the Interpreter, which imagined an assassination attempt on a Robert
Mugabe figure at the UN. It was interesting to see how Hollywood coped with this
theme, and how director Sydney Pollack tiptoed towards reality but funked it in
the end. We were told that the old dictator had once been a revolutionary hero,
feted in the west. We were shown the degradation of his regime, the corpses in
the football stadium. We were told that Nicole Kidman’s family had been killed
by a landmine, and we were given the tiniest of hints that it had been tough to
be a white inhabitant of this troubled country “in Africa’s south-central belt”.
But on the main point – the heart of the modern Zimbabwean tragedy – the film
was eloquently silent. Sydney Pollack did not have the nerve to address the
wholesale theft of white farmers’ land by Zanu-PF thugs. Why? Because the
vicious Mugabe land-grab is supported by most of black Africa; and even if
America makes ritual denunciations of Mugabe, it just would not have been
possible – or compatible with Hollywood’s PC values – for Pollack to make a film
upholding the right of white colonial settlers to their land. I’m not saying the
film was all bad: it was good to see a thriller about African politics. But it
was a cop-out.
As we left the cinema, a young chap thrust a note into my hand. I flinched. Was
it the black spot? Was he serving me a writ?
“Dear Mr Johnson (he wrote)
I hope you don’t mind this rather direct and brazen attempt to get your support
for a charity venture I am organising this summer.
“I am a 24 year old Edinburgh University graduate (first class) and I and
couple of friends are cycling from Panama City to Los Angeles (5000 miles) for
Central American street children. I know you are very keen on cycling. Would you
be interested in giving us a good luck message for our website?”
Yours sincerely
Gavin Green.
Well, all I can say is good luck Gavin! Give em hell. I hope that you and the
rest of your team have a fantastic time and that you raise masses of money for
the street children of central America.
And next time you have a mass cycle ride in foreign parts, perhaps you could
recruit the street children of north London, and stop them swearing and spitting
and making life miserable for everyone over here.
Best wishes
Boris Johnson
Morning Boris – Nice to hear your random thoguhts. You should tell us more about the little things going on in your head..
And good lick to Gavin Green and his mates too!
Oops. Obviously that should be good luck not good lick. At least I think that’s what I meant 😉
Morning Boris
Wish me luck, I take to my bicycle today for the first time in over 30 years!!
Put your name up for leader of the Conservatives … you would get so many more young people on board
Yes, it’s fun to hear your random thoughts!
If you do not put your name forward to be leader of the party it will be a travesty. You are the most popular person in the Conservatives(and you know it really!)
Boris, I’m 21, if you were leader of the Tories, I’d think about becoming one myself. You’re very under rated!
Good look to Gavin Green and his trek. We send a posse of South-Cal blue cheerleaders along with them to keep them going. After all it’s going to be a stiff ride. With the Cheerleaders its going to be even stiffer. But they’ll keep them going.
I’m with Jo, put your name forward for leader Boris! Nothing would p**s off Mr Howard more than you taking his job 😉
Hi Boris, good to hear your thoughts. I’m quite envious today – no-one ever takes any notice of me. I’m so invisible I should have been a spy, I could be drinking martini’s now, shaken, not shtirred.
A peek into the life of Boris and the curse of the North London feral children.
Bring back flogging!*
*Or possibly not, but it makes for great press.
“A peek into the life of Boris and the curse of the North London feral children”
Not just N.London children. After 3 failed attempts to get my sons attention yesterday I raised my voice a little and told him he would have no pudding if he didn’t come and eat his dinner. At which point he said he wouldn’t and would tell the teacher I was being horrible for making him eat his dinner before pudding – he knew his rights! He’s 5 years old.
I bet Boris’s kids don’t argue with him. (They must have a nanny for that sort of thing.)
The feral kids of North London do exist. When I lived in N. London a few years ago I used to ride my bike everywhere, and many’s the night I would ride north through Islington around midnight and see packs of young kids hiding in the shadows who would often throw things at the passers-by such as myself.
North London is not alone in the feral department.(Feral: adj. having escaped from domestication and become wild). What about the feral children of Derby? The behaviour of some children is explained away by feckless parents, whose excuse for their childrens’sexual stupidity is that society has failed in its basic responsibilities to protect the young, by neglecting to inform children , and girls in particular, not to have unprotected sex before the age of 12 . The mind boggles at such utterances because the persons uttering these nonsenses are either naive , or so thick, that they cannot, in all conscience, except by some sections of the Press, be given credence in this day and age. Spitting and related bad behaviour cannot hold a candle to the crass behaviour of such people, who continue to prosper, at the general Public’s axpense, in today’s prevalent PC atmosphere.
An interesting new photograph, Bozza, at the top of the page, looking like an aspiring Murray Perahia at the keyboard, about to sweep us away with your rendition of the Emporer concerto. Alas, on closer perusal, one notices that it is a computer keyboard, and your fingers are not over the traditional ASDF line, but the one below it, which means that, unless you are typing the Slovakian edition of the Spectator, you will be keying in nonsense. A great future awaits you in the Tory party – purveyors of drivel since Pitt the Younger.
‘the curse of the North London feral children.’
This reminds me of the muisc of The Pet Shop Boys. And their song ‘Suburbia’ from 1986. Not much seems to have changed since Neil Tennent wrote:
…well, what can anyone say about Viccy?
As far as Viccy goes: the word begins with T and ends with T. You may well fill in the rest.
Talent?
ok- a treat to have such talent, not to trumpet it
All we around here now is Carol Voderman. ‘I’ll have a vowel please Carol.’
> Talent?
Transient, hopefully.
Boris – given all the hype in the media right now about the coming leadership battler, have you ever thought about running? You’d get my vote, if I was a member. Oh wait a minute… maybe you wouldn’t, if I was a member!
Boris for Number 10!!
Stop Alan Duncan!
http://world-socialism.blogspot.com/2005/05/alan-duncans-grand-plan.html
The problem with The Interpreter is the casting of Nicole Kidman as a character who, based on her experiences and those of her family, should really have been black. Whites and blacks alike are oppressed in Zimbabwe and the film chose to tell the black story. That’s fair enough and what you would expect from liberal Hollywood filmmakers but then they should have had the courage of their convictions and cast a black actress – Halle Berry perhaps. If they wanted to cast a white star, they should have told the white story. Other than that, a decent enough film and better than most of the tat around now.
Kevin: Halle Berry a black actress! Really?
Thank all of you for your words of support and encouragement for my bike trip. I especially liked the sugegstion about cheerleading support.
Whilst I can’t do anything about the sreet childern of North London, I do hope to be able to ease the plight of those in Central America. If anyone is interested in our project our website is http://www.bicyclediaries.co.uk.
Well done, Gavin.
A mate of mine is currently cycling for charidee (Help the Aged) from John O’Groats to Lands End. Perhaps the feral street children of North London (I shudder to think what the Sarf London variety are like, being a refugee from there myself) should be supplied with state-subsidised bicycles. That’ll get them off the streets – oh all right, Mac, onto the streets but you know what I mean – and solve the obesity problem at one stroke of the pedal.
Just a thought.
Say I , reverting to type
I ‘d rather it were with one stroke of the paddle
I say, it’s the Gimp! Set the hounds on the blighter and we’ll have our fun and he’ll have his, the deviant.