Clarissa's Blog

To complete the process of placing myself entirely out of my intellectual comfort zone, I’ve been reading Boris Johnson ‘ s biography of Churchill. Normally, my interest in Churchill is nil, which is precisely why I acquired a copy of The Churchill Factor.

Boris Johnson – who’s the Mayor of London, in case you are not aware of him – set out to express his profound love and admiration for Churchill. Or at least I think he did because I just never know when the Brits are joking and when they are being serious.

In spite of the author’s efforts, I now think Churchill was an even greater wanker than I always considered him to be. The idea of Churchill ‘ s centrality to defeating Hitler that Johnson advances sounds very outlandish to me. The book, however, is quite pleasant. Johnson refers to Churchill ‘ s house as “a giant machine for the generation of texts” and to the young Oxford dons who did his research as Churchill ‘ s Google. That sounded very cute to me.

And how often do you read books that you know you will disagree with?