September 14th, 2011

The Telegraph really covered itself in glory last Friday by printing a few selected photos of the Cameron-Johnson tennis match on the front page with minimal text. The men and their styles have been compared in countless essays and news articles, but somehow all those words don’t convey as much as these well-shot and well-chosen images. Both are Etonians, but only Cameron exudes the polish and apparently unshakeable composure that many people associate with an upper-class upbringing. Those traits make some Britons see Cameron as a natural leader and make others want to mess up his hair, rumple his suit and slide him through the mud. Johnson in contrast shakes out his own hair, rumples his own suit and takes a long joyous dive through the mud before you can even open your mouth. That makes some Britons see him as “clownish“, to use our own James Wimberley’s word, but leads others to regard him as a regular, likeable down-to-earth bloke.

These photos capture all that and more, one of the few cases where I got more information from a physical newspaper story than from its longer and hypertexted version available on line.

5 Responses to “Two Etonians Well-Captured on Film”

  1. Vance Maverick says:

    You’re saying the photos capture the four divergent responses to the two men’s styles?

  2. Keith Humphreys says:

    Vance Maverick: To quote myself “The men and their styles have been compared in countless essays and news articles, but somehow all those words don’t convey as much as these well-shot and well-chosen images.” The photos capture the way these two people come across, the reactions people have to them isn’t visible in the photos really.

  3. anon says:

    Actually, I think that my first reaction to Cameron was “twit” from exposure to Monty Python.

  4. A selection of Boris Johnson quotes.
    His Wikipedia entry is worth a look. Extract:

    In a 2006 column, Johnson likened Conservative leadership disputes to “Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing” and was criticised in Papua New Guinea. The nation’s High Commissioner invited him to visit the country and see for himself, while remarking that his comments might mean he was refused a visa. Johnson suggested he would add Papua New Guinea to his global apology itinerary, and said he was sure the people there “lived lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity in common with the rest of us.”

    The Eton training tells. He is a much classier political comedian than Donald Trump.

  5. Dennis says:

    It’s funny how our visual systems work. I misread the headline as “Two Estonians”, and couldn’t figure out for the life of me why there was a picture of Cameron down there…