Boris at the party - magnificent!

Fortuitously I read the comments for this post chez Mr Eugenides, otherwise I might have missed this bravura performance by London Mayor Boris Johnson at the post Olympic Games closing ceremony 'handover' celebratory party. Even Gordon Brown seemed to be thoroughly enjoying Boris's seemingly-extemporaneous, but probably carefully-crafted, discourse.

I did however see a part of Brown's own speech at the same gathering, because that's what the BBC was dutifully plugging on its news buletins (on BBC World at least - which is what I was watching here in Spain at the time). No doubt the man means well, and if he'd stopped at the 1'41" mark it would have been fine, but he went on; just look at Seb Coe's face and even David Beckham's - the 'groaning' was of a quite different nature (i.e. 'when will this end?') to what it had been during Boris's tour de force.

(I note that Boris's speech was in fact considerably longer (at 4'11") than Gordon's (at 2'47"), but it seemed quite the reverse.)