from yahoo news...

[slemslempike]

Wearing patterned shorts and a bandana-style hat, he ran through the photographers taking his picture, with typical bluster, saying: "Mind out, mind out."

It can only be...Boris Johnson. What, may I ask those with more sartorial knowledge, is a "bandana-style" hat?

Comments

[br0k3nsoul.livejournal.com]

After following that link I have a question from the poor, confused American...What is a "shadow arts minister"? It sounds far cooler than it could possibly be.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Well, in parliament, the party with the most seats (Labour, at the moment), is in charge, and appoints a cabinet. One of the positions in the cabinets is Minister for the Arts.

THe party with the second largest number of seats (currently the Conservatives), are called The Opposition, and also appoint a cabinet, called the Shadow Cabinet. Boris is was the Shadow Arts Minister, or the Opposition's equivalent of the Minister for the Arts.

I'm a little unclear about what the Shadow Cabinet actually does, but I think their main role is to point out what a bad job the actual cabinet is doing in loud tones, and say how much better they would be in the same role.

(Apologies if this is either really patronising or hideously unclear, I'm not sure how much you already know about the vagaries of our political system!)

[br0k3nsoul.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It actually started to make sense to me right after I'd posted my comment, because I'd heard about the "Shadow Cabinet" before, but for some reason I kept thinking he was the Minister of "Shadow Arts" instead of the Shadow "Arts Minister." Hee.