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.
Yearly Archives: 2009
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
Boris on Twitter
Quest to extradite harmless hacker, Gary McKinnon
Gary McKinnon believes in little green men – but it doesn’t make him a terrorist
Way to go, Mr President. I think we can all agree that it has been a cracking first week. Apart from the swearing-in glitch – which was entirely the fault of that judge – I have supported just about everything that Barack Obama has done.
I liked the speech, and the promise that America is ready to lead again. It is good news that he is getting rid of Guantanamo and water-boarding and extraordinary rendition, all the dread apparatus of the Bush regime.
But before we all get too misty-eyed about the new era, and before Barack devotes himself entirely to the meltdown of the banks, there is one more thing in his diplomatic in-tray. There is one last piece of neocon lunacy that needs to be addressed, and Mr Obama could sort it out at the stroke of a pen.
Continue reading Quest to extradite harmless hacker, Gary McKinnon
Musical Instrument Amnesty
The idea is to persuade those members of the public who have finally abandoned their dreams of becoming the next Jacqueline du Pré to send in their cellos or flutes or bassoons and, if they have finally given up on the mouth organ, they can become organ donors.
A man’s got to know his limitations, says Clint Eastwood in Magnum Force, although, for most of us, the struggle with reality is very hard. It is only now, after half a lifetime of consistent failure, that I am on the verge of recognising that I was not born to be a musician. Continue reading Musical Instrument Amnesty
Goodbye to George Bush
So farewell then, Dubya. It was with tears in our eyes that we saw your final press conference yesterday, after eight tumultuous years, though in my case they were tears of appreciative laughter. Continue reading Goodbye to George Bush