Robert Hampton

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31st July 2007

Boriswatch

The London Paper have an interesting interpretation of the phrase “Private and Confidential” and have released Boris Johnson’s joke-laden and completely unserious-sounding application form. I’m not sure why they’re making a fuss — I’ve had very limited exposure to London, but I do know that to survive it requires a sense of humour.

EXAMPLES OF CHALLENGES FACED
Please give 3 examples of challenges you have faced and the outcome.

  1. Trying to help raise 4 children in inner London. Outcome too early to call, but looking promising.
  2. Taking on Blair and Campbell in the battle of Black Rod’s Memorandum on the Queen Mother’s Lying-in-State. Outcome: total victory.
  3. Negotiating Hyde Park Corner by bicycle. Outcome: survival.

Other highlights: Section 10 asks how much time the prospective candidate could devote to the role, with the instruction, “Please be as specific as possible”. Boris’s full answer:-

A great deal.

You may mock (I certainly intend to), but whatever you think of Boris, it’s hard to disagree with this little epistle:-

I see the yellow billboards sprouting in the streets, pleading for information about the latest stabbing, reminding Londoners that street crime is worse here than in New York. I see the hollow-eyed look of people emerging from the Tube after another miserable experience, and the rage on the faces of drivers stuck behind a bendy-bus. I move in a trice past the stuccoed villas of the mega-rich to areas of real poverty and deprivation, and I see families stuck in grossly overcrowded flats, with no hope of a way out.

So that’s Boris’s application. Surprisingly (or not), he didn’t fill in the Personal Character section (“Please detail any serious incident…which might cause you or the Party embarrassment.”). Hm.

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