Boris Johnson and the Painted Buses

Modern politics is confusing and alienating. I know this because, earlier this year, Adam Curtis told me across eight hours in Can’t Get You Out of My Head. But, while this show entertained and educated, nothing was explained. I kind of wish Curtis had done more than demonstrate that we’re trapped in a maze. What we really need is a way out.

For me, the essential riddles of recent British politics focus on a few specific strange incidents. I don’t know if I am insane, but I am convinced that these odd moments might explain… everything. One of the political riddles is Daniel Hannan’s lie about taking a walk in the English countryside. I’ve talked about this in depth and if I survive the pandemic I will have more to say about this (much, much more, as I’ve still not published my 10,000 word essay on the subject). Another example is the news footage of Boris Johnson telling an angry parent at a hospital that there were no press there – while on camera. The thing is, I finally found an answer to another riddle and it turned out to be far stranger than I expected, and no help at all.

Back in June 2019, before the pandemic, before Brexit, Johnson was campaigning to be leader of the Conservative party, which also meant being selected as Prime Minister. He’d just been caught up in a scandal where the police were called to an argument between him and his partner (now wife) Carrie Symonds. Shortly after, he was interviewed by TalkRadio and was asked what he did to relax. Johnson replied:

I like to paint. Or I make things. I have a thing where I make models of buses. What I make is, I get old, I don’t know, wooden crates, and I paint them. It’s a box that’s been used to contain two wine bottles, right, and it will have a dividing thing. And I turn it into a bus. So I put passengers – I paint the passengers enjoying themselves on a wonderful bus – low carbon, of the kind that we brought to the streets of London, reducing C02, reducing nitrous oxide, reducing pollution.

Now, this seems a very odd statement from a politician. There is little evidence that Johnson really does this – and certainly no pictures of these buses. There was a doodle of a bus sold in a charity auction. Many journalists, including the Spectator, found the whole idea preposterous. To quote Guardian sketchwriter John Crace’s description of the footage:

Even Johnson looked as if he had surprised himself. It was such a pointless, obvious lie. One there had been no need to tell. But he just couldn’t help himself. Lying was what he did. Lying was what he had always done.

Some people even saw the statement as arrogance mockery of the public, including TV show runner Simon Blackwell:

Only just caught up with the Boris Johnson model bus interview. Feels like a screw-you status thing – “I can literally say any old unbelievable shit and still become PM.” Like Trump’s “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”

One theory, a connisseur’s insider theory, provided a logical explanation, that the strange admission was a stunningly clever SEO (search engine optimisation) trick designed to hide the mentions of the Brexit bus in Google’s index. Johnson had long been linked to this outrageous lie during the Brexit campaign. There was even a widely-ciculated post from an SEO agency discussing this in detail. I’ve worked in agencies, and there’s always a drive for newsworthy blog posts that might go viral.

But I’m not sure how realistic that is, since Johnson was running for leader of the Conservative party, having reached the last two. It just seems a lot of effort to go to for a constituency that are not going to be so bothered. And there are far worse lies in Johnson’s past he’d likely prefer to hide. (Back in June 2021, Dominic Cummings was asked about this on his substack and replied: “You don’t know Boris! This was not a cunning SEO plan, honestly“)

I finally found an answer in Tom Bower’s recent biography of Johnson. I’ll talk about that book in detail elsewhere, as it’s both interesting and very poorly-written. But it did get to the answer about Boris and the bus, and it’s a stranger, sadder story than I’d expected. I now think Johnson was telling the truth about painting buses.

Bower’s biography of Johnson paints Stanley Johnson, the PM’s father, as the villain of the piece, and Johnson’s faults as the result of an unpleasant childhood. Bowers tells about how amusing celebrity Stanley Johnson once broke his wife’s nose, and would hit her in front of the children. How he deserted his family for a time in an old farmhouse, where the iron in the water pipes made them sick. “‘We were all lying ill on the floor,’ says Charlotte. [Johnson’s mother] Compounding that sickness, Boris often screamed with pain from agonising earaches caused by grommets.” Amidst this grimness, Johnson suffered periods of deafness.

Bower’s book later says: “Despite being a mother to three young children, Charlotte went to art classes and encouraged her children to paint. Boris seemed particularly keen on drawing and painting buses in oils.“

That line might be a little too on the nose for some people to find it believable. But despite the flaws in Bowers’ book (almost as many as his subject), it made Johnson a sadder, more sympathetic figure. I could imagine him painting as a way of revisiting some of the better moments of a harsh childhood. And, it turns out, there is other evidence of Johnson painting for fun, in this case, cheese boxes:

You get Brie and Camembert in these lovely wooden boxes. Now it might sound cretinous – and I’m not a very good painter – but I enjoy it and find it therapeutic. I paint the whole thing white with a tube of children’s paint and I look for something to paint. The last thing I painted was a picture of one of my family in front of the Colosseum in Rome. I also like painting whisky bottles.

So, having read Bowers’ book, I now have an answer to the riddle of Johnson and the bus. On balance, I believe Johnson was telling the truth. It’s not the answer I expected, and a far sadder story than the obvious one.

Here’s a picture of a banana Johnson painted in March 2021:

May Monthnotes

May was a month of big changes, but it was also mostly boring. I moved out of Brighton (which I’ve talked about elsewhere), but that meant a lot of time organising, fretting, and packing things into boxes. On top of that, my employer is not doing a great job of running a remote office, which makes a lot of my daily work dull & difficult.

Just before moving out I had my first vaccination. I was incredibly anxious throughout the third lockdown, and having the jab seems to have eased a lot of that tension. The crisis is far from over (particularly internationally) but it feels more manageable on a personal level.

I was dreading the moving day, but in the end it was less traumatic and time-consuming than expected. I was touched by the help I had from my friends, and we were done in about three hours.

I always notes my steps in these summaries, even while I’m finding walking underwhelming and uninteresting. May saw a total of 411,803, which is an average of 13,283, and the maximum of 32,656. I have a lot more mental freedom from leaving Brighton and lockdown; I am hoping to use this towards more interesting exercise. I’ve been doing my daily hip physio recently, and feeling a lot better for that.

With all the packing, I watched very few films properly. Zack Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead was OK. That was just an appetizer for Army of the Dead, which was a brash and joyfully-stupid action flick. I also watched You Should Have Left, a Kevin Bacon-starring Blumhouse Horror film. It was very much a low-budget House of Leaves, but overwhelmed by a lot of cliches, including a dead woman in a bathtub. Yawn.

I only read a couple of book, but Alan Warner’s Kitchenley 434 came at the start of the month and absolutely gripped me. It’s just a great novel, the reader being drawn in by a network of details, an effect you can’t get with fewer than 60,000 words.

Other than that, I’ve been enjoying the F23 Podcast, a few writing workshops, and not having to pack any more boxes!

My sister got a new puppy
Getting to hang out live at a zoom nightclub
Bluebells!
I had my first pint in many months on a drizzly Brighton seafront
Classy G&T in the park with my friend Nacho

Moving on from Brighton

On Tuesday, I had what is probably my last trip to the flat where I’ve lived for the last seven years. Empty, it wasn’t the same place I remembered, as if the memories are packed away with my possessions. I was only there briefly, removing the last few items, including the the fold-up table I’d worked from the day before.

Leaving Brighton has been on the cards since January this year, so it doesn’t feel like a shock to me. But with the pandemic and everything else going on, I’ve not spoken much about leaving, so a lot of people were surprised. I haven’t got around to arranging a moving party yet either, but will do soon. (Soon-ish, anyway).

I’ve lived in Brighton for 27 years, apart from occasional six-month breaks in Norwich, Hastings, Hoboken NJ, Coventry and Derbyshire. Even when I was living away from Brighton it was the center of my life. Now, I am looking forward to new things. I have a few plans but I’m taking some time to relax and settle before acting on them. I don’t feel sad at all. I had a great time in Brighton, and I’m sure I’ll be visiting regularly. I’d been thinking about leaving for some time, but the upheavals of the pandemic gave me space to take the decision. My main feeling is excitement about the future.

Things to do before I leave town

Things to do before you leave town… It’s been a long drawn-out process, but it looks as if I am close to selling the flat. Obviously, it’s best to take nothing for granted when moving house, but the schedule is finally falling into place and… if everything goes through, it will be sooner than I expected. Maybe even this month.

The next few weeks are likely to be a mess of undignified packing and logistics. I’m not going to get chance to say goodbye to everyone (hardly anyone!) before I leave, but I will be back relatively soon to say goodbye properly. Far better to enjoy that, than trying to squeeze it in among everything else I need to do before leaving. And, you know, I’d hate to have a big occasion then have things fall through and be here another four months.

I first moved to Brighton in October 1994, and the town has changed a lot. I still love it, but I also need a change. I want to settle into a new place and build new patterns, find new landscapes. I’ve left Brighton before, but that was always with the intention of coming back. This time, it will be for good.

The immediate future holds lots of putting things into boxes. I’m looking forward to having a calming cup of tea with that out of the way. Then, I will get on with organising a leaving party.

Sorry to anyone who’s hearing about this for the first time. The pandemic is a weird time, and I’d also not wanted to jinx things.

Also! How fucking exciting! I am going to be living somewhere new this summer!

Back to Reality (Day 419)

I’ve not posted anything about the pandemic since mid-March, when I marked a year of lockdown. Back then, I was suffering a bad case of the blues, and not doing well with continued confinement.

It’s now almost two months later. The case numbers and deaths are well down. Lockdown restrictions are easing. The vaccine programme is having an effect, even if I can’t book an appointment for myself within 20 miles of home. The tension of the last few months is fading.

I’ve been fortunate with much of the pandemic, but I found myself very withdrawn in the first part of the year. It’s taking time to get back into the flow of life. The last indoor party I went to was in March 2020. I’ve not eaten at a restaurant since October. I can’t remember the last film I saw in a cinema. Along with that, I’ve lost whole aspects of my social life. There are people who I’ve not been in touch with since this started. I’ve missed the small conversations I’d have when seeing people I knew at events; the chance meetings at parties. Gaps have opened up in my life.

(I recently saw my parents for the first time since the Christmas lockdown. They gave me a bag of goodies they’d planned to give me on Boxing Day. The vegan Christmas cake was now out of date).

The biggest change is being back in the office. While it’s a strange experience being in such an empty space, it’s good to have some variety in my life – even if we’re not supposed to talk to colleagues but via Webex video software.

A few weeks back, I had my first proper night out in almost a year. We were in a back garden, rather than a park or the beach. I took an Uber across town and drank cocktails by a firepit that hurled smoke in our faces. It wasn’t normal, not for April, but it felt good. I actually got to chat with a couple of people that I didn’t know well, and took a taxi home after one. That was good.

I don’t put it beyond Johnson’s government to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but I’m starting to feel hopeful that this has an ending. I’ve some friends who have been sheltering since this started who have finally set a date to be reunited with family. That date is months off, but it finally feels plausible.

There are lots of gaps in life right now, but the flip side to that is getting to do things again for the first time. Cinemas, theatre shows, festivals eventually. It’s slowly coming back.

April Monthnotes

April turned out to be a much better month than March, not least because I’m working in the office again. While I prefer working from home, I find that doing it under pandemic conditions is difficult. Office life is currently austere, but the daily change of scene is improving things. On top of that, I’ve been socialising more, which is making me feel more like myself. The first loosening of lockdown restrictions meant I could visit family for the first time in months, and it was great to head out of the city.

The increased mobility has made my daily steps total much easier. My average was a more convincing 14,414, with a maximum of 33,472. I now need to focus on fixing my bad back (like, actually doing my physio regularly) and doing more than simply walking, as nearly four months of lockdown has had a significant impact on my general fitness.

I watched several films, all of which were pretty decent. Godzilla vs Kong was a bit of a mess, but entertaining enough as a watch-at-home blockbuster. Suspiria and No Country for Old Men were intense, Palm Springs was an awesome timeloop film that I’ve yet to write up. Most enjoyable was probably Get Duked, a low budget classic recommended by Cat Vincent.

I’ve continued to be unfocussed with my reading, meaning I finished only a couple of books on politics.

That was a long, hard winter! But it feels good to be into spring and able to make plans once more!

Monthnotes: March 2021

(I forgot to actually post this at the start of April. March was not a great month, completely overshadowed by lockdown. Things are feeling much better now Spring has arrived)

The winter feels like it’s been going on forever. Physically, my eyes, my teeth, my body all feel like they’re falling apart. This lockdown has dragged, and even the clocks going forward doesn’t feel like much improvement.

I continued dragging myself out for 10,000 steps a day, managing an average of 11,550 and a maximum of 15,350. It’s taking a lot of effort to get outside, but I somehow still manage it. However, this is my only exercise and it’s really not doing its job. Maybe I will do some swimming now the spring is here, and hopefully I can find some way to reinvigorate the walking.

I watched a stack of movies, most of which were time loop films. I also watched:

  • Starship Troopers
  • Airplane
  • Rambo: First Blood Part 2
  • Synchronic
  • Sacrifice (2020)
  • The Empty Man

My reading has been a little all over the place, and I only finished six books, while having dipped into many, many more. The ones I finished were mostly about ley lines, but I did finish Suzanne Buffam’s The Pillow Book, which was a beautiful response to Sei Shonogan’s work. I also read Tom Bowers’ biography of Boris Johnson which, while deeply flawed, was also thought-provoking.

Ministry For the Future was an interesting novel, which with its multiple voices and long discussions of banking, felt closer to a ’lyrical essay’. Ultimately Robinson seems to imply that the world can be saved with cryptocoins based on carbon sequestration; mass civil disobedience; and targeted assassination of senior staff in polluting organisations. I should probably be reading actual non-fiction about how we save the planet, but this felt both sobering and hopeful.

Wandavision was ultimately disappointing, abandoning the playfulness for CGI combat – it was interesting while it lasted. Ultimately the show found itself uncomfortable and ignored the implication of many of its themes. Aaron Brady’s long essay in the LA Review of books had an eloquent summary of the show’s failures.

Rupaul’s Drag Race (US) has been great fun, despite the producers’ heavy handed interference. I’m warming (well, more thawing) to Kandy Muse, Gottmik is my favourite, and Symone seems a dead certainty to take the crown. With two series of Drag Race UK in 2022, I suspect this will jump the shark soon, but the show has been great pandemic entertainment.

Iteration 17: Supernatural (and Lucky (2021))

A Friday or so back, it was March 384th 2020 and I watched another time loop story. This was an episode from the third season of the TV series Supernatural called Mystery Spot. I’ve never watched a single episode of Supernatural, so it was interesting to see how this show handled the time loop against its ongoing storylines.

So many of the tropes used were common ones – breakfast in a diner, the repeating accidents, and dialogue referring to Groundhog Day. We saw one character die each day, resetting the loop. The exit from this loop was a little disappointing, relying on a character returning from a previous episode of the show. It was light, but fun to see how a TV show quickly established the loop.

I watched another film which was the first one I picked out that did not qualify as a time loop. I chose Lucky since it had been compared to Groundhog Day. Sadly, it didn’t meet my criteria, despite a clever and original premise, and one that is bitterly relevant. Spoilers follow.

May, a self-help writer, is woken at night by an intruder in the house. “Don’t worry,” says her husband. “That’s just the man.”

“Which man?”

“The one who comes to kill us.”

It’s an arresting start, although May’s amnesia does not fit with the rest of the film. Otherwise, the movie works well. Some scenes seem ridiculous at first, such as the attitude of the police, but this becomes part of the disturbing and absurd world of the film. May is gaslighted and patronised, and comes to realise that the things that are happening to her are happening to all the other women around her. It’s a devasting turn.

I’m not sure how many people would be eager to watch a movie about systemic violence against women, even one written and directed by women. But this was a powerful and emotional film, and one that sticks with me. The score was excellent, using a strange choral sound to generate tension, which is effective and makes a change from jarring strings. A good film, just not one that qualifies as a time loop in my criteria.

Boris Johnson: You Can’t Unmask a Clown

Edward Docx’s Guardian piece on Boris Johnson, The Clown King, is as excellent as everyone is saying. He lays out clearly how the trick is done, how Johnson’s persona functions as political theatre. It’s great writing, with some stunning observations and some excellent references. But its main value is as entertainment.

So much political reporting now seems to be about being an insider and knowing what’s really going on. You see it when people knowingly point out dead cat strategies (often while mis-using the term). You see it when people point out the dread hand of Dominic Cummings behind the scenes. You see it in every man talking about how fascinating the latest Adam Curtis documentary is. It’s a way of demonstrating an understanding of what is really going on (unlike those people seduced by Brexit and QAnon).

It’s all very well pointing out there is a dead cat on the table but the most important thing is giving the feline a decent burial and dealing with the sort of people who fling dead animals about indoors.

Part of the problem is that the media is so tribal. It’s not in The Guardian’s interests to tell its readers things they don’t want to heart. Last night, drunk on a mug of lockdown whiskey, I was reading Daniel Hannan’s introduction to Was Jesus a Socialist. Hannan complained about how the left sees itself as having a monopoly on compassion. Obviously, as Jesus would have it, I judge people like Hannan by their fruits, but merely painting all Tories as venal and manipulative doesn’t get us very far.

The problem is, I am confused. A while back, Johnson gave an interview where he claimed that his hobby was painting buses on wooden boxes. It’s such an obvious lie, with no corroboration, and such a senseless one. It was reported, ridiculed, dismissed and attacked. But we’re none the wiser for it. I’m convinced that these wooden boxes are the riddle that, when answered, would real the great secrets of the age. I’m trapped in insider views and analysis but the media seems uninterested in explanations. Why the fuck did he say that? Meanwhile, there are senior politicians saying obvious untruths about the Irish border and there are no consequences anywhere.

But at least now, my understanding of Boris Johnson as a clown is more textured and complete.