Boris Johnson the greased panther
The Mayor of London has apparently compared himself to a 'greased bounding panther' this week, whilst endorsing Barack Obama. I found myself wondering at the language. He addressed some hacks on the topic of cicero the other day, and on the basis that it's fun to trace other people's use of language, I found myself thinking about his imagery.
No understood words are original, and their arrangements often give a clue as to the broad workings of a mind. Johnson's is quite subtle, and he is a very clever man. Is he making some jokey reference to Sparta--to the oiled youths who used to bound around in firelight? Or a deeply English reference to the panther that wanted to hunt the Catholic hind in Dryden's long poem (and that failed)? Or to a 'sex panther' tee-shirt banned in six countries, or to some megalomaniac anti-christian panthera myth, or some pop song I haven't a clue about? Or revealing a quiet and typical respect amongst the English educated classes for the black panther/Malcolm X brand of sixties civil rights, given the Obama reference in the interview?
It's seen as hopelessly pretentious and risible, and it is of course futile, to over-read the world. Attempts to interpret, of course, also give a clue about the interpreter. Yet the forms of psychology that arose outside of behavioural and physiological disciplines, which were scientific, such as cognitive or psychodynamic models, are what people think of when they think of respectable psychology. The irony is that those latter two connective adventures are the least scientific in psychology, if the most lucrative.
I like the Mayor a little more for making me think this morning, if in a silly way. Now, he needs to get Ian Blair sacked, curb the Olympics boondoggle, and get rid of some of the more useless of the local government bureaucracy. And offend some more interest group leaders.
Making obscure references that nerds like me follow is, at the minute, an acceptable substitute.
The Mayor of London has apparently compared himself to a 'greased bounding panther' this week, whilst endorsing Barack Obama. I found myself wondering at the language. He addressed some hacks on the topic of cicero the other day, and on the basis that it's fun to trace other people's use of language, I found myself thinking about his imagery.
No understood words are original, and their arrangements often give a clue as to the broad workings of a mind. Johnson's is quite subtle, and he is a very clever man. Is he making some jokey reference to Sparta--to the oiled youths who used to bound around in firelight? Or a deeply English reference to the panther that wanted to hunt the Catholic hind in Dryden's long poem (and that failed)? Or to a 'sex panther' tee-shirt banned in six countries, or to some megalomaniac anti-christian panthera myth, or some pop song I haven't a clue about? Or revealing a quiet and typical respect amongst the English educated classes for the black panther/Malcolm X brand of sixties civil rights, given the Obama reference in the interview?
It's seen as hopelessly pretentious and risible, and it is of course futile, to over-read the world. Attempts to interpret, of course, also give a clue about the interpreter. Yet the forms of psychology that arose outside of behavioural and physiological disciplines, which were scientific, such as cognitive or psychodynamic models, are what people think of when they think of respectable psychology. The irony is that those latter two connective adventures are the least scientific in psychology, if the most lucrative.
I like the Mayor a little more for making me think this morning, if in a silly way. Now, he needs to get Ian Blair sacked, curb the Olympics boondoggle, and get rid of some of the more useless of the local government bureaucracy. And offend some more interest group leaders.
Making obscure references that nerds like me follow is, at the minute, an acceptable substitute.
Comments
"A caller to Vanessa Feltz’s Radio London show asked the three main candidates which Shakespeare character they most resembled. Livingstone, self-mocking, chose Julius Caesar. Johnson said Pericles. Much has been made of Johnson’s admiration for the great Athenian leader of that name. Embarrassingly for the classicist, Shakespeare wrote about a different Pericles. Livingstone, often derided as an un-British philistine, spotted this. Johnson, graciously, acknowledged his mistake. Talk then turned to the Sun’s endorsement of the Tory candidate. Johnson expressed his gratitude for this. “Oh Boris,” quipped Ken, “that was before they heard your mistake about Pericles.”"
http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2008/04/29/ten-reasons-to-vote-ken/
Your blog is great at the minute by the way.