Johnson’s life of London
Boris Johnson, Editor of The Spectator, Member of parliament for Henley on Thames and Lord Mayor of London, clearly loves his city- and is keen to share his enthusiasm. The result is a very enjoyable book.
Johnson has chosen a novel approach by combining the telling of both the city’s ruled and social history through the life a well known person of each era.
Along with this he has added a two page item (distinguished by a different font) between each era. In this he tells of an important development of the time. These, for example, include such as the invention of the flush toilet, not by Thomas Crapper as you were probably taught but by John Harington. Or again the patenting of the bicycle in 1818 which revolutionised transport, the writing of the King James Bible, or the numerous sports, like table tennis, invented in London.
The story opens with a Roman commander surveying the swampy land of the Thames estuary and, realising the strategic advantage of the site and building a fort there. Then of Boudica’s subsequent efforts to persuade the Romans to go back home.
From here the history of London unfolds through sixteen chapters each around a famous figure from Hadrian, Alfred the Great, Chaucer, Samuel Johnson, Shakespeare, W T Stead (to name a few) through to Winston Churchill. Johnson’s deliberate of choice of characters ensured that along the way he covered every aspect of life: soldier, writer, inventor , artist, statesman, business man, philosopher etc. and this is where I had a problem.
It appears that he had difficulty in finding a suitable composer. Seemingly London had not produced Brahms or Beethoven. The final chapter seems to be a desperate effort to right the situation; he chose Keith Richards.
“Really?” I thought. Boris Johnson has a reputation for being contentious, maybe this was what he was up to in the last chapter.
Here is a book chock full of information written in Johnson’s very readable style. As an instance; speaking of the artists Turner and Constable’s fierce and often vitriolic competition he wrote ‘ Turner and Constable were never gong to be chums’.
I just loved this book and had a feeling of disappointment as the last of the 320 pages grew closer. I will certainly be re- reading it and highly recommend it.
