Posts Tagged ‘boris johnson’

Cycling through London the other day on a Boris Bike (surely one of the great modern branding failures – Barclays pumped millions into the scheme only to lose the name to the charismatic mayor) and sweating like a constipated sumo wrestler, full of the joys of winter and rushing to get back for a meeting, I jumped a red light in a bid to outrace a black cab. I was on my way to see a film, for work. It was urgent. You know how it is; sometimes your life just seems more important than anyone else’s.

Not that the ridiculously youthful copper who spotted me agreed, mind – it became clear as he approached that he thought his own life was the most important thing in the universe. He was smiling. Clearly I’d made his day.

I immediately launched into the sort of silent, internal tirade one expects from people of a certain age and beyond who are in the wrong and have been caught out by authority figures who looks like they should still be in the boy scouts, or are possibly not long off the teat.

I seethed and grumbled as he gleefully stiffed me for £30. “Where do these fines go?” I asked myself as I paid up with gritted teeth.

And then I saddled up and went on my way to the film. In the warm again, I settled down and got comfortable. And had my pathetic brush with the law thrown into sharp perspective. The film was about how Zimbabwe’s infrastructure collapse has turned the jewel of Africa into a nightmare for thousands of children of primary school age.
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I went to supper at the small but deliciously formed Texture restaurant in Portman Street last night with our clients, the government of South Australia, hosted by the Agent General, Bill Muirhead, to celebrate the First Family of Australian wine production.

I sat next to Robert Hill Smith, who runs the Yalumba winery. Yalumba is Australia’s oldest family owned winery – it was set up in 1849 by Robert’s great great-grandfather, a Dorset brewer called Samuel Smith who emigrated to Australia, made some money from gold and set up the winery which he named after the indigenous Australian word for “all the land around”.

Also there was someone who knows a fair bit about all the land around – or around politics at the least; Lynton Crosby. He masterminded several Australian election victories for John Howard, the failed 2005 election campaign for the Conservatives and Boris Johnson’s successful mayoral campaign. So when he started to talk about the recent election, I could not help but listen intently. Read the rest of this entry »