The Second Serve // The Johnson Years, Vol.1

It’s a shame, looking back, that we let the wider world know that Boris Johnson’s phone number was floating about freely on the internet. It’s days like today when it would have been nice to pepper his WhatsApp with a bunch of our favourite stories from his tenure as PM.

As it was, we ended up sparking a minor national security crisis which attracted international attention and forced the British prime minister to change his personal phone number.

Ah, well. We’ll just have to send you those stories instead…

boris_bogtrotter writes:
“Stanley Johnson was in my local in Queens Park one Monday night, drinking a half of lager in an Estrella glass and eating cheese crisps. I mentioned to someone that it must be tense in the Johnson family at the moment, and was reminded of an incident here last summer when someone approached Stanley in the same pub to tell him that his son was a cunt. To which Johnson Senior wearily replied, ‘Yes, I know.'”

Now that Boris Johnson is stepping away from No.10 he’ll have more time to spend with his families – which will no doubt be music to their ears.

One Popbitch reader remembers attending a Parents Day at Bedales, where Johnson was present. There, he put everyone else’s picnic spreads to shame by setting up a small ground-level barbecue and grilling up some chops.

After a lot of smoke and a few popped bottles, Boris decided he would extinguish the dying embers himself by stamping on them. Sadly, he didn’t do it with much grace (“a sweating jelly of a man” was the exact phrase used) and ended up stumbling on the hot coals, nearly toppling himself.

Other guests in attendance were then treated to the sight of the prime minister trying to keep himself upright, while crying “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” as members of his party slapped his ankles with tea towels to stop his trouser hems from catching light.

As a man who has clearly put in his 10,000 hours – working with a wide range of partners and producing an indeterminate number of offspring as a result – you’d expect Boris Johnson to be an expert shag. Not the case according to friends of his private technology tutor, Jennifer Arcuri.

Her experience? Over in seconds and “like having sex with a boulder”.

deep_moat writes:
“I was a student on work experience at The Spectator in 2005 when Boris Johnson was editor. On my first morning, he sent me out to get him a latte and added: ‘And get one for yourself.’ The coins he gave me neither covered the latte he ordered, nor a cuppa for myself. So, Prime Minister, you owe me £2.35, plus 17 years’ interest.”

Lord Ashcroft’s lackeys were emailing around Carrie Johnson’s former schoolmates a while back, trying to drum up some stories for the recent biography he wrote on her. Researchers made a point of specifically asking for only positive memories of Carrie, which is possibly why this story never made the final edit.

One classmate’s abiding memory of their schooldays is being invited to Carrie’s mum’s house to help Carrie clean out an old shed and paint it to make it into a playhouse.

And then, once the job was done, never getting invited back to actually play in it.

In early 2018, the Conservative Campaign Headquarters endured a public roasting after their social channels tweeted out some flashy graphics announcing the details of an important cabinet reshuffle – which were completely and utterly wrong.

The top brass were furious at how sloppy it made them look, so the director of communications quickly scrabbled to find someone she could throw to the wolves. Her target? The graphics guy.

Unfortunately for her, colleagues had overheard her explicitly tell this same guy to tweet the incorrect information, so her attempt to frame him was short lived. Bosses kept a much keener eye on Carrie Symonds after that and, a few months later, with some increasingly suspicious expenses claims mounting next to her name, asked her to resign.

Nearly five years later, she’s clearly still struggling to keep her expenses on the up-and-up. But she has at least perfected the art of shunting the blame onto a hapless chump.

Last week saw audio rounds on the themes of Kissing, Jock Jams, Mamas and Papas. This week sees another five for you to pick apart and inspect.

There’s ten songs in each three minute mix, you’ve got to identify the songs’ titles (a point each; ten in total) and the performing artist/s (a second point each; a further ten). Ten songs, twenty points. A doddle.

Monday’s Theme: Bye Bye Boris

[Play it here]

Congratulations to Fuzz from Pop Will Eat Itself/Bentley Rhythm Ace for this
[Boris + Johnson]

Noel Edmonds’ new project
[Riverhaven Kiwi]

Danny DeVito examines people’s Danny Devito’s tattoos
[Watch on YouTube]

Old Jokes Home
Q/ What do Boris Johnson and the clapper on Big Ben have in common?
A/ They’re both enormous bellends.