The risk of going on holiday with friends is that you inadvertently expose the vagaries of your child-rearing methods to the scrutiny of others. Some parents seem to be breast-feeding lusty six-year-olds. Some of them have strange systems of potty training. And I am now accused by my fellow parents of being eccentrically liberal in what I consider suitable for the kiddies to watch on television.
Monthly Archives: February 2009
Roman quiz reminder
A quick reminder:
You have less than a week in which to submit responses to the Roman quiz.
Answers go to borisanswers@hotmail.com, not here! Good luck.
Roman Quiz and Prize
Roman Quiz – Devised by Jaq and Angela 
Prize – a PC Game
Boris-Johnson.com has been offered a chart-topping pc game Rome: Total War as a giveaway courtesy of www.pcgames.co.uk
Rome: Total War
With the glory days of the real-time strategy game now nothing but a distant memory, Activision’s Total War series has come to totally dominate the strategy market and Rome is such a huge leap above the already impressive Medieval and Shogun titles that the series has almost become a mini-industry in itself.
Set, fairly obviously, during the hey day of the first Roman Empire, the game gives you total control over your own faction with the game once again split between a turn-based strategic world map and real-time tactical battles. The former allows you to build and maintain armies and buildings, but also gives increased control over diplomacy and trade–elements that were largely overlooked in previous titles.
The real draw of the game though is the tactical battles which are now displayed using some quite staggering 3D graphics that can see up to 10,000 separate warrior in battle at one time. With units ranging from elephants and inflammable pigs to centurions and escaped slaves just watching the battles unfold is as epic as any Hollywood blockbuster. What’s perhaps most impressive about the game is that controlling such huge numbers of soldiers is actually surprisingly easy with a simple point-and-click interface making everything as smooth as possible.
Rome: Total War is one of those rare breed of games that is largely impossible to fault. In technical and gameplay terms it gets everything right and unless you have a pathological hatred of strategy games this is easily one of the best PC games ever made. –David Jenkins
Answers by end of 28 February 2009 please to: borisanswers@hotmail.com
Bankers’ greed and civil servants sitting pretty
Bonuses? For this lot? You have to be joking. It is mind-blowing. It is outrageous. It is sick. Since I have now been officially designated by the BBC as the last politician willing to say anything in favour of the financial services industry and its practitioners, I hope my friends in the City will not mind if I say that it is unbelievable – totally and utterly unbelievable – that banks in receipt of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money should be using some of that money to “reward” their star performers. Continue reading Bankers’ greed and civil servants sitting pretty
The Benefits of Free Trade
Now is the time to stick up for stocktrades
and the huge benefits it has brought
Let us suppose you are so brave or mad as to get in your car today, and head off through the snowy wastes. Suppose you find that you are almost alone on the roads, and that actually it isn’t so hard to drive. The car is snug, the radio is on, and slowly you allow your speed to climb. Continue reading The Benefits of Free Trade