Thursday, 21 August 2008

Classic Boris

Boris Johnson - the capital Boris, as Malty describes him below (under Semicolons and Snails) - put on a splendid and very funny performance in last night's Who Do You Think You Are? The mighty Boris (King's Scholar, Brackenbury Scholar) is living proof that it's best to put good classicists in charge of everything . It was classicists - educated in a supposedly defunct tradition - who ran the empire, being well versed in such matters from their readings in Latin history and literature. Without classicists we'd be nowhere - in fact we probably are: I doubt there's a single decent classicist in Broon's mob.
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11 comments:

  1. Anonymous21 August 2008 at 11:52

    I give you Peter Stothard and Mary Beard. Those two are brilliant and at least they're majorly influential at your most important news organ.

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  2. Nige21 August 2008 at 12:03

    Yes - a surprising number of classicists in the print media, which must be a good thing. They used to be all over the Civil Service too, sending each other elegant memos peppered with Latin tags and classical allusions. Those days are long gone...

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  3. malty21 August 2008 at 14:19

    Spot on Nige, enough damage has been done to this poor old country of ours by the PPE brigade, even more if Milly Band takes control.

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  4. Uncle Dick Madeley21 August 2008 at 14:51

    If anybody asks, Nige, you've not seen me...

    Excellent post, by the way.

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  5. Anonymous21 August 2008 at 19:24

    i don't normally advertise my wares, but i wrote a homage to Boris:

    http://elberry.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/why-boris-johnson-should-be-absolute-monarch/

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  6. Anonymous22 August 2008 at 03:49

    Ah yes, the glories of empire. If only Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis had been running the show in Britain circa 1914...

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  7. Anonymous22 August 2008 at 10:10

    TEMPORA MVTATNTVR ET NOS MVTAMVR IN ILLIS.

    EHEV!

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  8. Nige22 August 2008 at 10:26

    Eheu indeed!
    Eheu fugaces labuntur anni...

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  9. Anonymous22 August 2008 at 12:38

    Okay, okay, okay clever school boys. Ya gonna translate for the illiterate (read, lazy) American?

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  10. Nige22 August 2008 at 12:56

    Untranslatable Susan...
    Roughly, Alas the fleeting years pass away (Horace).

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  11. Anonymous22 August 2008 at 21:52

    I'm not too certain whether Latin will help Boris in Beijing?

    However I can confirm that CRI now broadcast in Esperanto.

    This can be seen at http://esperanto.cri.cn/

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