Listening to Boris is not a smart move

Kevin McCallum

Kevin McCallum

Published Jun 27, 2016

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The last time I checked, there was a rhino at the High Timber restaurant in London. It’s a near life-size replica, a mascot of sorts and a reminder that while High Timber may be on the banks of the Thames, it has a South African soul. It is a short walk from the Millennium Bridge, a brisk stroll from St Paul’s, across the river from the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre and about as close to home as a South African could wish to be when you are in London.

It was founded by Gary and Kathy of the Jordan Wine Estate and run by co-owner and wine genius Neleen Strauss, all South Africans true and fair. Neleen has become a friend since we met at High Timber in London in 2012, not long after she had sent Boris Johnson a bill for what was then R1.1-million. Johnson, the Mayor of London at the time, had then, as he and his fellow Brexiteers have done these past few months, been a scaremonger. He had, said Neleen, told Londoners to stay out of the city to make way for the swathes of foreign visitors to the London Games.

They did not come. High Timber’s turnover fell by 80 percent. Neleen did the sums and hand-delivered a bill for £90 000 to Johnson’s office. In a letter, Strauss wrote that she wanted Johnson to pay the bill personally, not from the deep coffers used to pay for the London Games.

“I squarely blame Johnson for my lack of customers because, time and again, he warned Londoners to leave room for the millions of visitors he said would come to the capital. This inspired city bosses to suggest that their employees either take their holidays during the Olympics, or work from home -There is no-one here.

“And the heralded influx of tourists didn’t land in the city. They travelled east, where the action is,” wrote Neleen in mid-August of 2012.

A month and a bit later, Johnson apologised to all the London businesses that had lost money during the Olympics.

He had promised them a bumper summer. It didn’t come. Johnson isn’t much cop at making good on promises.

He hides his ambition behind jokes and buffoonery. He wins over the public with jokes and buffoonery. He pushed for an exit from Europe with jokes and buffoonery.

And last week, it stopped when the old and the scared voted to leave Europe, buying into the great lies of the right wing. He won when he thought he would lose. David Cameron called his bluff and he blinked. He backtracked and fumbled. Pyrrhic victories are dangerous.

At the Beijing Games in 2008 Johnson was in town to accept the passing of the responsibility of hosting the next Olympics.

He joked that “ping pong was coming home”. He played the bumbling, dozy, somewhat lovable Englishman without the spite of Basil Fawlty. He accepted the Olympic flag with his jacket unbuttoned - considered bad form by the Chinese - and then waved it like a spoilt fat kid.

He was being shown around the Main Press Centre by a convoy of Chinese and International Olympic Committee people before the closing ceremony.

I was walking past him at the time. I stopped and shouted after him: “Boris, please make sure the media bar in London is good. It’s rubbish here.” He waved breezily over his shoulder at me. I think it was me.

In London, the media bar was an undecorated room with TVs and a long bar. Functional, but not very London in style. Johnson could have done so much better.

But I laughed when I walked in to it for the first time during the Games because Johnson was a funny man. He doesn’ t seem so funny now.

Ice, Ice, baby

Iceland score. You are the Icelandic commentator doing the match live from the stadium. When Iceland score in the last minute to beat Austria you lose it. You scream, you suffer an emotional collapse, and become a YouTube sensation because of it.

Finally calmed, you go home to your day job, which is as an assistant manager of KR Reykjavik.

The big boss calls you in. Well done on Euro 2016, he may have said.

But you’re fired. Your team have lost five of your last six matches.

They are third from bottom in the Urvalsdeild, Iceland’s premier football league. Tonight, Gudmundur Benediktsson is expected to be back in France for Iceland’s last 16 match against England. Forgive him if he sheds a tear and lets out a scream or two.

The former Mayor of London is not someone to believe

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