Boris.

I'm thinking a little about Boris today.

No, not Boris Badenov, Notorious No-goodnik. Not Boris the Spider, either. This blog wants to officially congratulate Boris Johnson for becoming the Prime Minister of the UK.

The unlikely named Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who turned 55 in June, first got my attention at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing when he was mayor of London. In the closing ceremonies, the Olympic flag was passed to him to carry back to London for the 2012 Games. Who was this guy, this shambling mound of a human being?

He had the hair of a blond Beatle ca. his birth year. His clothes didn't seem to fit well, like he'd just found out with five minutes to spare that it was school picture day. Overall, he looked like some bloke who'd been drinking all afternoon that they pulled out of the stands. ("The London mayor didn't show! Get us an Englishman! ANY Englishman! All whities look alike! Stuff him in a suit and send him out there!")

This is a British politician? Well, surely he had to be one of those Labour Party oiks who purposely dress like pigs to prove they are down with the people, right? Nope, big-time Tory. He looked like he was assembled of parts taken from random English people. Who was this guy?

Soon I learned the one thing about him that explained everything else: He was a journalist.

Journalists, generally speaking, are not meant for visual consumption. The journalists on TV are mere newsreaders (there are exceptions, but not as many as they'd like us to believe). Historically, tweed is the natural environment of the journalist, not Savile Row. Most of them looked like they cut their own hair. Seen this way, Boris Johnson was the proud standard-bearer of his previous profession more so than the standard-bearer of the Olympics.

Any writer is interested when a writer gets elected to high office. We're still excited about Vaclav Havel, and he left office in 2003. Very few writers get a shot at changing the world, but a few big-time politicians are good writers -- Julius Caesar, Theodore Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant. The thing is, every writer on some level thinks he'd do a better job running the joint than the people who are; once in a while, one gets a shot. So we'll be following Boris's PM career with interest, especially as regards to Brexit.

Writers are probably only second to actors in terms of people who are 1 billion percent convinced that they are important with virtually no evidence to support that belief. At least actors never cut their own hair.