It seems that any stage is perfect for Boris to dip into his mental bran tub of words and images. Look at him in the video in front of a large crowd last week, just prior to the opening of the London Olympics. Is there any other politician who could have conjured up the phrase,
“The excitement is growing so much I think the Geiger counter of Olympo-mania is going to go zoink off the scale.”
And Monday in the Daily Telegraph is of course Boris Johnson’s word-fest day in print. Today he names 20 reasons jolly good reasons to feel cheerful about the games. Here are some in which Boris’s opinion is spot on with the national mood.
7. The president of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, made a truly excellent speech, in which he paid tribute to the role of Britain in either inventing or codifying the sports we celebrate at the Olympics. Only a small proportion of his speech was in French.
17. No single athlete was able to swank about having the honour of lighting the cauldron, since that went to a collection of young athletes. This was a typically brilliant and diplomatic decision by Seb Coe.
19. As I write these words there are semi-naked women playing beach volleyball in the middle of the Horse Guards Parade immortalised by Canaletto. They are glistening like wet otters and the water is plashing off the brims of the spectators’ sou’westers. The whole thing is magnificent and bonkers.
The ideal mayor for the occasion.