Freakonomics Radio - 187. The Man Who Would Be Everything

Episode Date: November 20, 2014

Boris Johnson -- mayor of London, biographer of Churchill, cheese-box painter and tennis-racket collector -- answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.

On this week's episode, Boris Johnson drops by to chat about being mayor of London, a writer, a great admirer of and now biographer of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a potential future prime minister himself, and most singularly, he chats about just being Boris Johnson. I love old wooden tennis rackets. There are other old things he loves. I collect old cheese boxes. At one point in the conversation, the need arose to remove his shoes.

Yeah, hang on, I'm going to take them off. I'm just going to see if I can see what's in them. These are so worn that you can't hang on. Welcome to Frequently Asked Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dupner. So let's begin. Please tell our listeners exactly who you are and what you do. Yeah, I'm Boris Johnson. I'm the mayor of London. And that means I manage most things in the city that require a strategic view. So the transport, the police, the fire, a huge number of stuff like that. A lot of the building of new homes I'm responsible for,

planning the strategic direction of the greatest city on earth. We have now in London 72 billionaires, which is more than New York. New York has only 43 billionaires, and Paris has only 18 billionaires, and Moscow has, I think, 40. So, you know, London is to the billionaire as the jungles of Sumatra are to the orangutan. Congratulations on that. We're proud of that. I mean, we're quite proud of it. I mean, let's be clear, we have mixed feelings. I'm sure you like your poor people too, though. Exactly right.

And the argument that we make is that the presence of these exotic creatures, the billionaires, is good for the whole ecosystem. And they support by their billionaire activities, you know, asking people to bring the car around to the front of the hotel or whatever they do. And, you know, that adds the economic activity in the city, as I'm sure you understand. Now, before we get too far, I want to say welcome to New York City, which is your birthplace. Yes, it is. And a city I absolutely love. We should also say that you are standing again, running again for the House of Commons. That's right.

That's right. Yes. A place I left about seven years ago. So for those who know you as the colorful, let's say, if we had to pick one adjective, mayor of London, we'll get into that. I think many people don't know. I can use that now. I can handle that.

Okay. I chose not to go with bombastic. Bombastic, okay. Many people don't know what a really wonderful writer you are. Well, yeah. It was until I ended up using bombastic in a sideways manner. But I really think you're a wonderful writer. And in fact, before you became a politician, you were a mostly very well-regarded journalist having written several books.

And your latest book, it's called The Churchill Factor, How One Man Made History. It's being published, I believe, in the U.S. on this very day as we speak, correct? This is publication day. Congratulations. And I'm very proud. It's a great thing to be published in America. It's doing well in London. It's doing very well in the U.K.

And I'm sure it will do well here. It's a very good book. He's a fascinating character. Your interpretation of him is interesting on every page. Here's what I want to ask you, however. We're used to politicians here and in the UK writing books about themselves in order to position themselves for future elections. You having written about yourself, and I know you've been asked this question, but I do want to call your attention to just a couple of passages that I found particularly interesting, where you write about Churchill.

And one could imagine without a whole lot of mental choreography that you appreciate these things about him because there are some parallels to you. Here are a couple of bits of descriptions of Churchill in the book. I knew you write that he had a mastery of the art of speech making. And I knew even then, this was when you were a child, that this art was dying out. I knew that he was funny and irreverent and that even by the standards of his time, he was politically incorrect. He was eccentric, over the top, camp with his own special trademark clothes, those wonderful jumpers, jumpsuits, and a thoroughgoing genius. Now, again, I don't mean to put you on the spot and say, would Dr. Freud or one of his many colleagues

look into those words and see you writing about him thinking about yourself? Look, of course, all British, there's no question that Churchill casts a massive shadow, a spell. He intoxicates all British politicians who've come after him, particularly male conservatives of a certain type who yearn to be like Winston. Of course, that's true. But, you know, I've got more in common, frankly, with a one-eyed pterodactyl or a Kalamata olive. But he was a very remarkable guy. And, I mean, when I say remarkable, that's an understatement. He was, you know, he was not a big guy, by the way. He was 5 foot 6 and a half inches tall. He had a 31-inch chest.

He was a shrimpy sort of guy who built himself up, partly by dumbbells, partly by sheer self-projection, to become this incredible buffalo-like figure. I discovered amazing things about him when I was writing the book. And I concluded at the end, to get to your point, that he just was running on a different kind of biological fuel than the rest of us.

And he was able, what really knocked me out, you know, you're a journalist, I'm a journalist, we know what it takes to write a piece fast and all the rest of it but he could drink red wine, white wine

whiskey, liqueurs, a dinner knock off, have a huge cigar 10 o'clock or later he would go to his office, stump up and down and dictate until 3 in the morning perfect, brilliant, excogitated prose that, you know, amongst other things, helped him to win the Nobel Prize for

literature. Now, I can write pretty fast after lunch, even if I've drunk some alcohol. I cannot do it after dinner. I just cannot. I don't know anybody. Do you know anybody who can do it? No, I don't know. So I So I think there was something strange going on with him. Well, maybe he had better whiskey than we do. I don't know. I don't know. No, I think he just had more energy. And, you know, every day he would write thousands of words of memos.

He wrote more published journalism and prose than, I think, than Dickens and Shakespeare combined. So, you know, he was prodigious. The Churchill Factor is the book. It's really extraordinary. And I encourage anyone within the sound of my voice to read it. Now, Mr. Mayor, I'm about to ask you a series of questions unrelated to Churchill, largely at least. These questions heretofore known as frequently asked questions.

And we plan to make this a regular feature, asking exactly the same questions to many notable people. we plan to make this a regular feature, asking exactly the same questions to many notable people. You plan to make this a regular feature, but this is the first time that you've tried it on some guinea pig. Not only is this the first time, so you're the guinea pig, but if you fail... If this goes really bad, this is going to be the end. Okay, well, let me...

I just wanted to say that to encourage you to do your best. This is not... Okay, well, what do you mean? You sound like my grandmother at the beginning. Darling, just do your best. It doesn't matter what happens. Let's begin with this. Tell me in 60 seconds or less, if you can, what you actually do in a given day, you particularly as mayor of London. I have endless meetings and give a huge, a huge and unbearable number of speeches. And I take decisions. Question. What's the best investment you've ever made, financial, emotional, education, whatever, that led to your getting to where you are today? It was getting hold of a secondhand copy of Abbot and Mansfield's Greek grammar,

accidents and syntax, without which I would not be where I am today. You were how old at the point? Actually, it was rather late in life. I was all of 11 by the time I really started. My career in Greek was, I'm afraid, did not get off to the usual cracking start. I was very slow. Who has been the biggest influence on your life and work and why? Well.

Living, dead, someone you knew, someone you didn't know? You know, what do you mean apart from my, well, no. It's obviously my parents. Yeah. That kind of thing. I suppose culturally my biggest influence has been – I would say Homer, the poetry of Homer. That was the thing that really knocked me out when I was about 16. Having mastered Abbott and Mansfield, I then went on to Homer.

And that was massive for me. Because Homer is all about failure and mortality. Which is, you know, you've got to understand. When you reach my age. What do you worry about when you go to sleep at night? Uh... I tend, you know,

the time between my head hitting the pillow and being, you know, folded in the arms of Morpheus is so short. I don't think I think about anything. I never have any trouble getting to sleep. They say that's the mark of an honest man. Well, I hope so in my case. I certainly don't.

It's a long time since I've had a sleepless night. I do burn the candle at both ends, so what sleep I get I tend to zonk out pretty firmly, I'm afraid. I'd like to ask you, and forgive the impertinence, and I guess you don't have to answer, but I'm going to ask you anyway. I'd like to know your net worth today compared to that of your parents when you were a teenager, and you can mentally adjust for inflation if you'd like. Well, I think it's incredibly difficult to compute because you see what's happening in London is that the kinds of properties that members of the bourgeoisie could afford in, say, the 1960s or 1970s are now absolutely beyond the reach of people of my generation or certainly of my children's generation. So it is very difficult to say. I mean, think about my grandparents.

They had an absolutely colossal house in, where the hell it was, St. John's Wood, which, you know, no way anybody in my family could now afford a house in St. John's Wood. So it's something weird. So London's arrival as this global city that everybody wants to live in, and, you know, of course, it has many of the problems of New York. But London really is attracting huge amounts of international investment.

It's got a massive population boom going on. The success of London is having a weird effect of actually making it very hard for Londoners to afford to live there. And that's actually my single biggest challenge now as mayor, is to build enough affordable housing for our people. And we've got to do it. I mean, I haven't answered your question. I would say, you know, in many ways, I would say that in income terms, probably even deflated, my income is bigger than my parents was and certainly bigger than my grandparents was, even deflated. My income is bigger than my parents was and certainly bigger than my grandparents was,

even deflated. But you're not as house rich because of the nature of... But in assets, there's no question that there is a steady impoverishment of the bourgeoisie and we need to address it. Tell me something you've habitually throughout your life spent too much money on but don't regret. It's haircuts.

I mean haircuts. I spend an awful lot. Have you ever paid for a haircut? No. No, I'm joking. I do believe that you should try and have good shoes, a decent pair of shoes. Where do you get your shoes? I'm curious.

London. Yeah. What shop, though? I'm curious. Where are they? Hang on. I think they're… You're going to take them off?

Yeah. I'm going to take them off. I'm just going to see if I can see what's in the… These are so worn that you can't… Hang on. Oh, God. Churches. these are so worn that you can't hang on oh god churches churches churches shoes

they're very good my heel has more or less rubbed out the gold lettering churches shoes those are fantastic shoes and I would recommend those they won't let you down. They won't let you down. Coming up on Freakonomics Radio, the mayor of London is happy to share his computer passwords. Sorry, they're shaking their heads here. No, no, no, I don't. No, no, I make I want you to know it's very heads here. No, no, no, I don't. No, no, no, I'm

Mick. I want you to know it's very common. It's mainly Greek. I use lots of algorithms. And, fed up with England's poor showing in the World Cup, he has an idea. I really think we should be more like, you know, we should have, like, what was it, Uday and Kuse Hussein, you know, we should,

when they come back next time, we should just, you know, threaten to do something in the changing rooms with those guys unless they sharpen up. It's just unbelievable. from WNYC this is Freakonomics Radio here's your host Stephen Dubner welcome back to frequently asked questions a new and potentially permanent feature in which we ask a fixed set of questions to notable guests. Our inaugural guest is Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. I asked him what's one thing he owns that he should throw out but probably never will. I love old wooden tennis rackets.

I don't know why. I love playing with them, too. And one of the reasons, several reasons why I'm very bad at tennis. But I just find them a gorgeous thing. And yes, they neither help my tennis nor they serve no practical purpose. But I love them. But I won't get rid of them. I won't get rid of them. I won't get rid of them.

Let me ask you this. What do you collect, if anything, besides old wooden tennis rackets? I collect old cheese boxes. No. Old camembert and brie cheese. No. I love camembert and breech.

I love those boxes that are made of very, very beautifully shaved wood so that they have this very smooth texture. Are they round? Round is good or triangular, sometimes very large round. And on those, believe me, you can paint and get the most wonderful effect. I don't know why. I just love painting things on cheese boxes. Another Churchillian parallel to painting. I don't know about the cheese boxes. Or it sounds a bit like George W. Bush, actually.

But I kind of love it. Here's a question I'm curious to know if you'll answer at all. What can you tell me about your strategy for creating and or managing computer passwords? Yeah, I try to do roughly the same one all the time. Sorry, wait, wait, they're shaking their heads here. No, no, no, I don't. No, no, no, I'm Mick. I want you to know it's very common.

It's mainly Greek. I use lots of algorithms. You're not going to crack it. Alan Turing wouldn't crack my computer passwords. Favorite book or author other than yourself? I think it's, you know, it's a ridiculous question in many ways, but the book I can always read with pleasure and find a laugh on every page is Scoop by Evelyn Waugh.

There's no question. And it's the book that made me want to be a journalist. That and all the President's Men. Favorite food? Curry. Really? What kind? Indian.

Hot. Would it be a fish curry, a meat curry? No. Well, it would be, I think, a sort of a Rogan Josh from, you know, somewhere nearby. Now, do you cook? I'm capable of cooking. Do you make a good curry? No, Marina makes, my wife makes very good curry.

She has an Indian parent, correct? That's absolutely right, yeah. Does the curry come from that or unrelated? It does, it does, it does. Her mother has got various secrets that she's passed on, which I can't tell you. You were about to tell me your computer password, so I bet we could get you to tell us the curry secrets. I don't know what they are really. In the interest of time, Howard, we'll move on to this.

What's your favorite sport to play? Well, the sport I loved and which I miss on a bright, cold day, I absolutely physically miss it, is rugby. The game that I actually excelled at, the only one game I was really very proficient at was called the wall game, which I was quite good at. But that is not very widely played, unfortunately. Is that a relative of rugby? That's a kind of relative of rugby. Component? It's a kind of relative of rugby, but you form two gigantic scrums against a wall, and the objective is to grind your opponents to a paste against the wall by pushing and shoving. And I was quite good at that.

Good training for both politics and journalism. Yeah, that's right. Interviewing techniques. Favorite sport to watch these days? Oh, boy. Well, I tell you what I loved. I watch all sports with pleasure. But the thing I got into for the first time and hadn't really enjoyed before is this NFL thing, American football.

I mean, wow. Our propaganda has worked. We've been bringing it to London increasingly. Yeah, it is working. I couldn't believe it. Not only did the atmosphere itself was amazing, but as I watched it, I actually understood what was happening and I could see the skill.

Normally, I suppose, what do I watch? Rugby, tennis, football, the usual range of stuff. And who do you support in football? Oh, God. Is this going to get you in trouble? No, well, no. It just exposes my lack of street cred. I don't really have a football team

that I passionately support. I should. I support all London sides. Well, that's not saying. That's 150 clubs or something. Oh, I know. There's none that makes your heart beat. You're not Arsenal.

England. How about England? England. I support England. My condolences then. Sorry, sorry. Pathetic answer. That's the best I can do on football.

No, I just feel bad for you because they're such a difficult team to support. England. They have that brief flurry of optimism every World Cup and then collapse in a cloud of fatalism that was preordained. It's the most depressing thing. It's just sad to watch, yeah. I really think we should be more like, you know,

we should have, like, what was it, Uday and Kuse Hussein? When they come back next time, we should just, you know, threaten to do something in the changing rooms with those guys unless they sharpen up. It's just unbelievable. The trouble is, I think, that they are such successful players for their clubs. You asked about clubs.

They don't really, for some reason in England, we haven't done what they've done in Germany and built up the esprit de corps, the loyalty to England as an entity. And so we don't have a great national, as good a national side as we could, I think. Anyway, that will get me into probably more trouble than anything I've ever said. But there you go. Tell me something that most people don't know about you. My first name is Alexander rather than Boris. How about that?

Well, that does. Family calls you Al, correct? They call me that. That's absolutely true. So the next time we see you. If you shout Al in the street at me, I will give a guilty start. What do you not give a guilty start at if someone shouts it at you in the street? If someone said, you Tory tosser, I would take it as a badge of honor.

So here's a question. What do you think will eventually lead to the demise of humankind and when will it happen? I think the demise of humankind will happen before we discover the secret of immortality. I've always thought that there was a kind of, that the gods were engaged in, there's a sort of wager, a cosmic wager going on about whether mankind will destroy itself before it discovers the secret of perpetuating individual human beings. And, you know, it's kind of like trading places. You know, there are two old gods somewhere who've taken a very small bet, one obol or one, you know, one drachma. And one's saying, mankind's going to wipe itself out. And the other's saying, nah, nah, nah,

they're going to discover immortality. And the race is on. I think that we will, I, you know, I think the biggest threat that we have is... It sounds as though you're not very worried about climate change. You've written quite dismissive. No, I'm worried. Well, I don't think climate change presents, I must be clear with you. I don't think, you asked about the extinction of the human race.

I believe that mankind, humanity, is well up to the task of finding the technological solutions to climate change, that we are going to find them. We will deal with it. We will manage that problem. That is not the thing that's going to extinguish us. What will extinguish us is catastrophic warfare, disease. Eventually, the sun will become a red giant and engulf the inner solar system. And I think that's only four billion years away. So we've got to work.

I'm encouraged by this interstellar film, but I haven't seen it. I love the idea of it, but it's getting these bad reviews. I so wanted it to get good reviews. And it's really discouraged my hopes for finding that new world through the wormhole. You know, that was – do you know what I mean? I do. I was thinking there was the low garden door. You must have liked the rover that just landed on the comet.

Oh, isn't that fantastic? Yeah, wonderful. It's the most wonderful thing. It's the greatest triumph of the European Space Agency. It's gone 316 million miles at a cost of more than a billion dollars. And it's finally landed on this uninhabitable, pointless piece of rock. And it's disappeared into a crater. And they can't find it.

Its solar panels are no longer receiving energy. And it can't transmit. And that's sad. So it's gone all the way there. But we should send someone else, another craft, as soon as we possibly can to go and help it. Would you be willing to ride in that craft? Yeah, I would. God, I would love to.

It's only 10 years, apparently. 10 years. Would you do it? Would you want to go? Would you spend 10 years? I would not, but I applaud your initiative. And you would still be young enough to come back, become prime minister, serve a term or two there, then move here, establish residency because you

were born here, then you could become president of the United States. You'd be the first. And then people 100 years from now will be writing books about you. Well, I think the first thing is about as likely as the second. And back to Churchill for a second. He was a great technological optimist and enthusiast. And I think he certainly would have wanted to terraform new worlds if he could. He would have been out there. Don't forget, he was the guy who invented the tank. His mind helped to drive it forward.

And he pioneered aviation and all manner of things. He was one of the first, you write, one of the first humans to ride in an airplane in Europe. Is that right? Well, that's absolutely right. Or do I have that wrong? No, you're totally right. And, you know, it was obviously the first flight was here in Kitty Hawk in America. But it was only a few years later that Churchill was himself at the controls, at the controls of one of these crazy contraptions of rope and leather and so on.

And he almost died several times. And his instructors did die. He was just deranged in his bravery. Thank you so much for bringing his history uh back to us i think the the mission of the book is wonderful to remind generations now who who churchill was what he did for those who are starting to forget or those who didn't know and thank you so much for coming in today about yourself all the best be well thank you Hey, podcast listeners, on the next Freakonomics Radio, the first of a two-part report on education reform. In this first episode, we focus on teacher skill.

You may have heard that U.S. teachers are, well... They're just a little bit below average. But it isn't necessarily their fault. Yes, the way we train teachers is fundamentally broken in this country. And how can the perception of the teaching occupation be changed? We have armed forces board airplanes first. Well, why not have armed forces and teachers board airplanes first? Is the teacher skill gap the biggest piece of education reform?

Yes and no. That's next time on Freakonomics Radio. Thank you. Joel Werner. If you want more Freakonomics Radio, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or go to Freakonomics.com where you'll find lots of radio, a blog, the books, and more.