还记得奥运会闭幕式上，那个挥舞会旗的伦敦市长吗？
他的名字叫做鲍里斯·约翰逊（Boris Johnson），我觉得整个仪式中，他给人印象最深——上台的时候，他的西装居然没扣上！除此之外，走路的时候，他东张西望，竟然还将手插在口袋里！一点也不庄重，显得散漫和随便。
他的这种表现，引发了很多批评。一个网友就这样说：
不符合英国绅士和贵族的形象。让他自己看看这张照片，跟在罗格后面象个什么？小丑？仆人？小偷？跟想象中的英国绅士形象相差太远，咱不说你，你自己觉得这样能代表英国形象吗？
昨天，这位市长先生在最新一期的《观察家》（The Spectator）杂志上发表文章，为自己辩护。他在当伦敦市长之前，干了十几年记者，所以很能写，大家看下去就知道了。
他这样描述当时的情景：
We only had a few seconds left to get ready.
留给我们准备的时间很少。
There were 91,000 people in the stadium and (allegedly) about 1.5 billion watching apathetically at home.
体育场里有91000名观众，（据称）还有15亿人在家里看电视直播。
I advanced to the little plastic sign on the red carpet saying ‘Mayor of London’, and as we waited to be called to the centre of the arena I decided I had better spruce myself up.
红地毯上，有一块小牌子写着“伦敦市长”。我走到那里，等着轮到我们进入体育场中央，我觉得最好让自己显得精神一点。
Now the crowd were roaring and waving their red light sabres, and hastily I got out my wallet, mobile, keys, and all the other clobber that might impair my flag-waving performance, and handed them to a chap on my left.
人们发出欢呼，挥动手中的红色光棒。我急忙将钱包、手机、钥匙和其他零碎都掏出来，交给左边的一个小伙子，不能让它们影响我挥舞旗帜。
I rolled my shoulders like Rocky, and rehearsed the agenda again in my head. What could possibly go wrong? Take flag, get red circle out to left, wave four times, hand flag to flag-bearer. Piece of cake.
我像电影《第一滴血》里的洛奇那样，转动肩膀，又在脑子里复习了一遍流程。有可能出错吗？拿过旗帜，然后走到场地的左上角，挥舞四次，接着将旗帜交给旗手。真是小菜一碟。
Just as I had it taped, just as I was in the zone, I became aware of a chap beaming and pointing at his midriff. Then another chap was pointing at me, jabbing his finger in the direction of my stomach. Was I too fat? Was I insufficiently Olympian?
我一边默想，一边等候入场。这时我发觉，一个小伙子笑起来，还指着他的腹部。然后，另一个小伙子升出手，指着我的肚子。我太胖了吗？我不够资格参加奥运会？
‘Button,’ said the chap. ‘Do up button.’
“扣子，”他说，“扣上它们。”
I looked and saw that my fellow performers on the podium all had their jackets done up, and so did my charming Beijing counterpart, Mayor Guo. I reached instinctively for my middle button, and then thought, sod it.
我一看周围，主席台上，我的同胞都扣着外衣扣子，风度翩翩的北京郭市长也扣着。我本能地抓住中间那粒扣子，心里想，糟了。
I checked swiftly with the chap from the International Olympic Committee, and no, there is no Olympic jacket-button protocol. Open or shut: it’s up to you.
我急忙询问国际奥委会的工作人员，有没有关于扣子的规定。谢天谢地，没有。扣不扣，你自己决定。
I was going to do it my way, and on the matter of jacket buttons I was going to follow a policy of openness, transparency and individual freedom.
于是，我就按自己的想法做了。在扣子这件事上，我的政策是开放、透明和个人自由。
I am sad to see that some Chinese bloggers are now attacking me for my ‘lack of respect’, since there was no disrespect intended. It’s just that there are times when you have to take a stand.
我很难过地看到，有一些中国的网志作者攻击我“缺乏尊重”。我从心底里没有任何的不敬，我只是觉得，有些时候你必须有一个立场。
没想到啊，原来他不扣扣子是故意的，而且还上升到了个人自由的高度。看来他是不赞成将奥运会搞成一本正经，所以故意让全世界看到一个不那么正经的形象，真是有个性啊！
他还讲了他见到了胡锦涛主席。这一段很好玩。他说，接见之前的几个小时，他一直在背一句普通话。有人告诉他，胡主席听了这句话，会很高兴。结果握手以后，他脱口而出：“Renshi ni hen gaoxing.”胡主席微笑着回答：“Thank you very much.”
这一段我就不译成中文。（懂英语的同学，别错过黑体部分。）
‘Who are we going to see?’ whispered Seb Coe as we were ushered into the VIP sanctum of the Bird’s Nest stadium, a place of thick snowy carpet and a horseshoe of white armchairs. ‘We’re gonna see Hu,’ I whispered back. ‘Who?’ ‘Hu.’ Before I could elucidate further we were shaking hands with the Paramount Leader of the People’s Republic of China, general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, the 65-year-old Hu Jintao. For the last couple of hours I had been practising a phrase I had learned from my brother Max, who speaks fluent Mandarin. ‘He’ll love it,’ said Max. ‘It means, Very pleased to meet you.’ So it was with great excitement that I took the hand of the Chinese leader — a kindly-looking man with glossy black hair — and blurted my line. ‘Renshi ni hen gaoxing,’ I gushed, scanning his face for approval. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said, which was pleasing, though I think he said the same to Seb. We also met Jiang Zemin, the former paramount leader, and Hu’s predecessor. The workings of the Chinese Communist Party are of huge importance to geopolitics, and far from clear. Why is Jiang still knocking around? How did he become less paramount than Hu? Who knows? And Hu knows.
他还说，这个场景让他想起了一个笑话。上个世纪80年代的时候，英国外交大臣叫做杰弗里·豪（Geoffrey Howe）。一天，他会见苏联领导人勃列日涅夫，他说“How are you?”勃列日涅夫马上说：“不，不，你才是Howe。”（No, no, you are Howe!）……哈哈哈，太好笑了，我差点一口水喷出来。
I would remind you that Geoffrey Howe is said to have greeted Brezhnev with the words ‘How are you?’, to which the Russian brilliantly riposted, ‘No, no, you are Howe!’
看了这篇文章，我对这位伦敦市长发生了浓厚的兴趣，就去wikipedia查看了他的条目。果然，这个人很不简单。
他大学毕业后，先去咨询公司工作，但是觉得那里太闷了，干不下去，于是改当记者。（Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix, and stay conscious.）当记者以后，他专门写一些讽刺性的政论，极富喜剧天才。就是因为他太喜欢搞笑，电视台还请他去当综艺节目嘉宾主持人，他客串了几期，居然获得了英国电视奖（British Academy Television Award）的提名。2004年，他出版了第一本小说《72个处女》（Seventy-Two Virgins），内容关于一个倒霉的议员，不幸卷入了恐怖分子刺杀美国总统的阴谋，据看过的人说，此书令人捧腹。
2008年，他宣布竞选伦敦市长，不可思议地竟然选上了。我猜想，这可能同赵本山担任北京市长的感觉，有点类似。总之看起来，伦敦市民也是很有喜剧精神的。
2008年5月6日，新市长第一天上任，竟然是骑着自行车去办公室的。
最后一件关于他的趣事是，2008年8月21日，他到北京的“英国之家”召开记者招待会。由于他以前也是记者，所以同台下很多人都认识，可以直接叫出名字。台下的英国记者也把他当作哥们，直接称兄道弟，一伙人嘻嘻哈哈就把记者招待会开完了。
现在回过头来，再看他在闭幕式上的举动，就显得很自然了。他的个性就是不喜欢那种刻板的、严肃的、压抑个人自由的体制，所以哪怕在奥运会，他也要提醒和证明这一点——个人必须有选择的自由。
我觉得这样也很好，没有人规定奥运会一定要是一个官方的、庄重的场合，办成民间的、轻松的风格，有什么不好呢？Google公司宣称它发现了10条真理，其中第9条是“不穿西装，不代表你不专业”（You can be serious without a suit）。总有一天，我想大多数人都会接受这一点：内在的东西才是最重要的，只有形式主义者才喜欢穿得西装笔挺。
（完）
没有评论:
发表评论