Rome is an education

After making small but important media waves in defending “Mickey Mouse” degrees on his website – pronouncing “One man’s Mickey Mouse course is another man’s literae humaniores – this week has been a busy
one for BoJo followers. He first appears in a decent-length and enjoyable article in The Guardian. In “Ich bin ein Frankfurter” – so named after a BoJo utterance during the interview – Boris manages to lay down some home
truths while staying reservedly on the fence on many major topics, blunting any possible attacks from other parties. But the real gem of this article is the attached “podcast” (??) of the interview, in which we get The Full Audio Boris. I recommend setting aside a good half hour to listen!
The Times also pops up with a fairly fawning article with Boris, describing Boris as one of the “cleverest acts in British politics.” Damn right!
And while we all discuss that article, Boris has been plugging the Conservative educational cause up north in Edinburgh. Your humble Boriswatch host – by complete coincidence – was also up there, but I’m afraid there were no reported sightings of BoJo. And more’s the pity, as he managed to get around a bit, by all accounts. In the day or so he was up there, he managed to share breakfasts with students, get baffled by his popularity and wallow in pride as he managed to garner an enormous amount of votes. The only fly in the ointment came in the hours before he arrived in Edinburgh – his declaration in support of Top Up fees did not go down well with the student community. As Boriswatch readers “Saxmachine” and “Rich May” revealed mere minutes after it happened – and The Scotsman later revealed in their article “Beer, jeers and cheers for Boris” – Boris had a pint of beer thrown over him by an angry student. Boris remarked on it later: “I tried to make a speech but I couldn’t hear anything because of the noise. At the end, someone very kindly poured a pint of beer over my head. I am most grateful because it was the first of many
drinks I received one way or the other over the evening.” Pure Boris!
Coverage overall, though, has been favourable. Google News has a collection of stories about the trip. And to top it off, reader “chromatius” informs us that while Boriswatch was snoozing this morning, BoJo appeared this morning on Sunday AM with Andrew Marr, bringing up allegations that Blair agreed to go to war long before it was announced. Chromatius details the appearance here in his blog.