Sunday, June 3, 2012

Boris Johnson - Mayor of London

Today's New York Times carries an interview with the amusing and colorful Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. He has a reputation as a charming, highly entertaining Conservative maverick who's not afraid to go against the party line or say what he thinks.



Some memorable Boris Johnson quotes:
On Tony Blair
"It is just flipping unbelievable. He is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall."

On becoming Prime Minister
"My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive."

On being sacked by Michael Howard
"My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters."

On how to vote
"Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3."

On why he voted for David Cameron as Tory leader
"I'm backing David Cameron's campaign out of pure, cynical self-interest."

On drugs
"I think I was once given cocaine but I sneezed so it didn't go up my nose. In fact, it may have been icing sugar."


Youtube video (below) where Boris talks about his fascinating ancestry in the BBC family history program "Who do you think you are?". According to Wikipedia: "He was revealed to be a direct, if illegitimate, descendant of George II of Great Britain through his eight times grandmother Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, granddaughter of George II and wife of Friedrich I of Württemberg, and thence through their son Prince Paul of Württemberg and Paul's illegitimate daughter, Adelheid von Rothenburg. Adelheid (known as Caroline) married Baron de Pfeffel, from whom Boris takes one of his middle names. By his descent from George II of Great Britain he is also descendant of all the other major European royal houses. His Turkish great grandfather, Ali Kemal Bey, who like Johnson was a politician and journalist, was assassinated in the 1920s, following political conflict in Turkey."


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