Friday 14 September 2012

Summer...2012...Boris' launchpad?

As estival periods go, that which is now passing into Autumn, was especial in so many ways.  It all began for Greenwichians with the making of our new Royal Borough in February and the re-opening of the magnificent Cutty Sark.  & then HMQ celebrated her Diamond Jubilee with the great Thames orgy in the rain, followed by the more stately St Pauls and carriage ride to the Palace.  At that time everybody was predicting the Diamond celebrations to be far better than the Olympics to follow.  Ask the man on the Clapham Omnibus, whether he enjoyed the red, white and blue of the royal celebrations better than the same colour trio festooned over our brave boys and girls of TEAM GB and you may find the Olympics telly and in person spectacular spectatoring wins hands down. Indeed it did at one point seem like the whole nation (or those people I have spoken to at least) were utterly besotted by the whole sporting patriotic endeavour.  Trotting off to some far flung Court early one morning I saw an elderly couple straight out of some 70s sit con sitting on the Tube covered in our national colours eating spam and cheese sandwiches - for all the world looking like it was their first time out of the house, or  at least first time out of whichever suburban hell hole they had travelled from, in 30 years.  It occurred to me that if such timid denizens of middle grey England were coming out for a trip to the Olympics, then truly amazing things were happening.  And indeed they have.  Not least in the political career of the Great BoJo.  He has accepted full personal responsibility for the whole show and is lining himself up to swapping his 7.7 M Londoners for the full 62.6M UK citizens which the Prime Minister gets to worry about.  Bet Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson wouldn't need any Lib Dems in order to form a Govt.  I'd be worried if I was Miliband.... the Olympic legacy may be a Boris majority that none can match.  How about that!