"I wouldn't trust Boris to operate a mop, let alone a £10 bn Crossrail project"

[Anarcho-Socialist]

I don't care what Ken Livingstone does - I'll still vote for him if it stops Boris Johnson becoming mayor

# Charlie Brooker
# The Guardian,
# Monday April 14 2008

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!!!!!!

(snip)

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...

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/14/charliebrooker.boris

[non sociopath skin]

1. Yes, I really enjoyed that.

Brooker is not only right, he's funny too.

The Skin

[moggie]

2. One of the comments described the article as a "bit silly"

That's someone who's not familiar with Charlie Brooker, I presume!

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Maybe they're complaining it's not silly enough?

[moggie]

4. Could be

Admittedly, Brooker (whose writing I love, BTW) didn't mention arses or poo once, so it's not up to his usual standards.