Prime Minister and overweight
Boris Johnson is riding again! The peculiar writer, columnist, Mayor of London and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is returning to the public space and will have a full-page column reserved every Saturday in the Daily Mail, a British newspaper with a daily circulation of more than a million copies. Readers will not miss it - that's for sure, which is completely and expected considering that the Daily Mail skillfully combines tabloid sensationalism with serious stories, investigative journalism and authors, masters of shaping public opinion. The Daily Mail wanted to intrigue the public, and published a teaser with the headline that the new columnist, an erudite, will be read both in the domestic Parliament and around the world.
When they announced that it was Boris Johnson, the public was not overly surprised, but the party started almost immediately. First, he was publicly accused of violating the so-called the ministerial code, which requires former prime ministers to obtain the approval of the Advisory Body for Business Engagements before any business engagement. Johnson asked for approval, but only half an hour before his new position was publicly announced. As if he wanted to say - you can't do anything to me, but I still respect the rules.
The first column of the new-old columnist, we think, was simply hilarious, simple and everyday with refined humor, stylized, and described his weight loss experience with Ozempic. So, it was about how a former prime minister, part of the social elite, is struggling with excess weight. Boris is aware that obesity is a pain point for many people, especially before the summer season, but he describes the struggle with excesses in delicate areas in a comical, relaxed way, and in the end one realizes that all this is actually irrelevant. If we were to look for a deeper meaning of that first column, we would say that it is about accepting ourselves, the way we are. That is the truth, and for many it is nice to hear it, especially when it comes from a special person like Boris Johnson himself. He says that while he was still prime minister, he noticed an unusual phenomenon in his cabinet - he saw that several members of his team had drastically changed their appearance. Some seemed to get a new look on their faces, others' necks finally emerged effortlessly from their collars. Others' silhouettes have changed for the better, so Boris thought that there were only two possible answers: either they had fallen hopelessly in love or they were planning to run for the leadership of the Tories - a little healthy self-irony is not out of place. Boris discovered that it was the drug Ozempic, which is injected into the abdomen and drastically reduces appetite. He tried it, the hernias melted, the appetite went away, but he didn't feel well and stopped. He accepted himself - to guess from the column, maybe he will turn to some new methods, and one thing is for sure, he reminded the public of what was called in soap operas "even the rich cry", so that even former prime ministers like him are only people of of flesh and blood who carry out a raid on the kitchen at night and suffer the consequences.
Hope for every student of literature
Johnson fits perfectly into such a journalistic profile as the Daily Mail. He himself could comfortably be a part of almost every section of that British daily newspaper. There is something aristocratic in him, the royal family is always there somewhere in British society, then relations with allies, current topics, a bit of science and culture, sometimes a dose of literature, unavoidable celebrities - in all these sections Johnson left a piece of himself, either as an author, and often as a protagonist. When he was leaving the post of Prime Minister and handing over the baton to Liz Truss and the "compassionate Conservative government", Johnson said that, like Rome's Cincinnati, after realizing his political ambitions, he would return to his plow, synonymous with the peasant way of life.
The old fox Boris fully consciously tickled the imagination of the public, which was not sure, and the Latinists did not help to clarify, whether Cincinatus achieved a second return to political life from the village. It remains completely unclear whether the outgoing prime minister plans the same. The Roman Empire and classical languages have always fascinated Johnson. From the prestigious Eton to Balliol College in Oxford, where he graduated. Today, classical languages have become almost of a rare character, they are imputed to be almost completely useless, uninteresting, dead, and they get all kinds of other epithets. Boris's spells seem to have served him well in all his public work - and not only when he recites in classical Greek at the United Nations, his speeches are lively, articulate, sometimes shallow, but with sublime rhetorical skill.
Former professors do not really praise him, they state that he was probably the worst student that the prestigious Eton ever delivered to them. Philosopher Anthony Kenny, who was also his teacher, will say that he did not learn much from truth and wisdom, but he did learn how to make witty and brilliant speeches. And books, we must add. When his book "Dream of Rome" came out in 2006, it was a huge refresh in the field of classical literature. Witty, provocative, and sometimes lascivious, the book compared the state of the current European Union with the dynamics of the Roman Empire, approximately on the trail of whether and when it will collapse. When he wrote "The Churchill Factor" in 2014, he brilliantly presented that anthological British prime minister through the correlation of his personal and political life, his relationship with his father, and anecdotal humor. On Saturdays, columnist Boris will have the opportunity to entertain the audience with his distinctive style, subtly shaping public opinion while waiting for a new return to political waters.
Bonus video:
