ninehertz

1. • JenTheHen
   • I can't believe it, I really can't. London wants fucking shaking.
   • [14:12 on 03/05/08]
2. • Amy B
   • yup.
     
     fucking bnp got a seat on london assembly as well. and 2 in rotherham.
   • [14:21 on 03/05/08]
3. • Gareth
   • As amusingly daft as Boris is, I wouldn't let him run anything.
   • [14:26 on 03/05/08]
4. • mike
   • I love this, democracy has pissed on its own shoes.
   • [14:28 on 03/05/08]
5. • mike
   • Brooker is correct as usual-
     
     
     quote:

     A few years back, during the run-up to the Nathan Barley TV series, my co-author Chris Morris and I briefly kicked around a storyline about an animated MP running for election. When I say "animated", I mean literally animated. He was a cartoon - the political equivalent of Gorillaz - fashioned from state-of-the-art computer-generated imagery so that he could move and talk in real time, like Max Headroom. His speech would be provided on-the-fly by a professional cartoon voice artist working in conjunction with a team of political advisers and comedy writers, so he'd have an impish personality not dissimilar to the genie in Disney's Aladdin. Debating against him would be impossible because he'd make outrageously goonish statements one minute and trot out cunning political platitudes the next. Because he wasn't real, he'd never age, die, or be bogged down in scandal - and huge swathes of the population would vote for him just because they found him cool or fun or different.
     
     Fast-forward to now. On May 1 London chooses its mayor, and I've got a horrible feeling it might pick Boris Johnson for similar reasons. Johnson - or to give him his full name, Boris LOL!!!! what a legernd!! Johnson!!! - is a TV character loved by millions for his cheeky, bumbling persona. Unlike the cartoon MP, he's magnetically prone to scandal, but this somehow only makes him more adorable each time. Tee hee! Boris has had an affair! Arf! Now he's offended the whole of Liverpool! Crumbs! He used the word "picaninnies"! Yuk yuk! He's been caught on tape agreeing to give the address of a reporter to a friend who wants him beaten up! Ho ho! Look at his funny blond hair! HA HA BORIS LOL!!!! WHAT A LEGERND!!!!!!
     
     If butterfingers Johnson gets in, it'll clearly be a laugh riot from beginning to end, like a series of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em in which Frank Spencer becomes mayor by mistake. Just picture him on live TV, appealing for calm after a terrorist bombing - the scope for chuckles is almost limitless.
     
     Assisting Boris in his run, the London Evening Standard is running an openly hostile anti-Livingstone campaign, which means every other page carries a muckraking down-with-Ken piece from crusading journalist Andrew Gilligan, played by Blinky, the three-eyed fish from The Simpsons, in his byline photo. All the articles blend into one after a while, but their central implication is that Ken's a boozy egomaniac surrounded by a corrupt circus of cronies, so you might as well vote for a rightwing comedy pillock instead. You know, him off the telly. With the blond hair. LOL!!!! WHAT A LEGERND!!!!!
     
     Now, even if the Standard photographs Ken carving a swastika into a dormouse's back, I'll vote for him for the following reasons:
     
     1) I'm genetically predisposed to hate the Tories. It's my default, hard-wired position. If Boris wins, their simpering pudge-faced smuggery is going to be unbearable. Picture the expression Piers Morgan makes when he's especially pleased with himself, then multiply it by 10 million, and imagine it looming overhead like a Death Star. That's what it's going be like. Therefore I don't care who wins provided Johnson loses, and loses hard, preferably in close-up, on the telly.
     
     2) Ken's other main rival is solid-but-dull Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick. He probably deserves a shot, but as he's not going to win, voting for him would be a waste of a perfectly good X, which might otherwise be used to pinpoint buried treasure, indicate affection, or mark a plague victim's door.
     
     3) I wouldn't trust Boris to operate a mop, let alone a £10bn Crossrail project.
     
     4) On a related note, I don't believe in my gut that Boris gives even the faintest hint of a wisp of a glimpse of a toss about London, or indeed humanity in general. Both of which are fairly important in a job like this.
     
     5) But on the other hand OMFG LOOK AT HIS FUNNEEE HAIR LOL!!!! BORRIS IS A LEGERND!!!!
     
     Anyway, if the worst happens and Boris gets in, then provided he doesn't obliterate the capital in some hilarious slapstick disaster, or provoke war with Portsmouth with a chance remark - provided, in short, that London still exists in some recognisable form - the rival parties should fight fire with fire by running equally popular TV characters against him in the next election.
     
     It doesn't even matter if they're real or not. Basil Brush would be a shoo-in. Churchill, the nodding dog from the car insurance ads - he'll do. Or if we're after the ironic vote, how about Gene Hunt from Life on Mars? Or Phil Mitchell? At least he's a Londoner.
     
     They might as well. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and there's no more desperate sign of the times than the current wave of LOL OMFG!!!! BORIS DONE A GUFF!!!! ROFL!!!!!!! THE MAN IS A LEGERND I TELL YOU LOL!!!!! I CARNT WAIT 2 SEE HIM RUNNING THE INTIRE CITTY!!! BORRIS 4 KING!!! LOL!!! LOL!!! LOLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
     This week: Charlie toyed with the idea of growing a beard, then dismissed it as madness. He saw an advance copy of this Wednesday's The Apprentice, and has since had to repeatedly stifle the urge to discuss it with everyone he met.
   • [14:55 on 03/05/08]
6. • theadore
   • Liked the Brooker piece... hit the nail quite squarely on the head.
     
     Also a big fan of Zoe Williams (i think?) piece for the Guardian on election day... made the evening standard seem fair and balanced by comparison.
     
     Unfortunately I don't know 1 person in London who voted...
   • [18:16 on 03/05/08]
7. • Donny
   • They're all as fucking bad as each other.
     
     I know lots of people who voted. Sadly for Boris. Ken had fucked everything up here, but sadly the only real alternative was Boris.
     
     Real big choice.
   • [07:38 on 04/05/08]
8. • JenTheHen
   • I'm sorry but I really don't see it. He's a fucking clown, how can that be posed as a serious choice?
     
     I hope he fucks it up as badly as he's fucked everything else he's ever done up so that I can laugh at the idiocy of London people some more.
   • [07:41 on 04/05/08]
9. • elenajane
   • I love Charlie Brooker!
     My vote would go to Phil Mitchell....
   • [12:17 on 04/05/08]
10. • Rob Himself
    • What little ol' me thinks about The System isn't going to change anything, hence me not voting. Politics is just about who can shout the loudest. I also couldn't give a flying fuck what happens inside the M25.
    • [16:46 on 04/05/08]
11. • J Parker
    • Eh? People voting does change things, albeit for the worse in 79 when Thatcher came in, in 92 when John Major came in, and in 97 when Blair came in. Oh.
    • [18:30 on 04/05/08]
12. • Donny
    • JenTheHen says:

      
      I'm sorry but I really don't see it. He's a fucking clown, how can that be posed as a serious choice?
      
      I hope he fucks it up as badly as he's fucked everything else he's ever done up so that I can laugh at the idiocy of London people some more.
      
      
      
      Yawn, northerner bashes london etc.
    • [18:45 on 04/05/08]
13. • JenTheHen
    • Donny says:

      
      

      JenTheHen says:

      
      I'm sorry but I really don't see it. He's a fucking clown, how can that be posed as a serious choice?
      
      I hope he fucks it up as badly as he's fucked everything else he's ever done up so that I can laugh at the idiocy of London people some more.
      

      
      
      Yawn, northerner bashes london etc.
      
      
      
      If you wish to see it that way. Although, clearly by giving a shit I am showing concern for the south. Because London has landed itself in a whole heap of shit.
    • [00:13 on 05/05/08]
14. • sabbathfan
    • J Parker says:

      
      Eh? People voting does change things, albeit for the worse in 79 when Thatcher came in, in 92 when John Major came in, and in 97 when Blair came in. Oh.
      
      
      
      And for the better in 45 when Atlee came in, someone who did more for this country in six years than the last five prime ministers put together.
      
      I voted for Ken, so I'm slightly irritated Boris got in. However the London mayoral position has not got many powers, unlike the situation in New York for example. All Boris can really control is transport and a few other things besides.
    • [10:10 on 05/05/08]
15. • Rob Himself
    • sabbathfan says:

      
      All Boris can really control is transport.
      
      
      
      Hahahah. "Boris stop train!!! Boris redirect taxi!!! Rarggghhh!!!!"
    • [10:15 on 05/05/08]
16. • theadore
    • After watching have i got news for you? I think that eevryone should start using the name 'Bo-Jo' when referring to the clown
    • [10:18 on 05/05/08]
17. • J Parker
    • NO that will just make him more popular- he'll be on the cocking cover of Heat every week anyway, cos he has oh so amusing hair.
      
      All he can control is transport? That IS London - it's really important, and apparently he wants to give people in big gas guzzlers special breaks - so glad Im moving to the south coast, Tory town though it is!!!
    • [13:02 on 05/05/08]
18. • sabbathfan
    • Ken started loads of transport schemes like Crossrail, Olympics transport etc. which work has already been started upon. Johnson would find it hard to turn them back, and if he did it'd be political suicide.
      
      
    • [14:05 on 05/05/08]
19. • elenajane
    • 
      Bendy buses
      
    • [14:59 on 05/05/08]
20. • sabbathfan
    • Johnson has said he'd get rid of them and it probably wouldn't be a bad idea; they are a good concept and over in Germany for example they've had them for ages, but for Central London they aren't brilliant.
      
      A revamped/upgraded Routemaster is a pretty decent thing in theory, let's see how it would work in practice.
    • [19:54 on 05/05/08]

Forums - General Chat - Boris fucking Johnson?