Scylla and Charybdis

Perhaps BJ's bufoonery is a double bluff. He is not pretending to be a bufoon. He actually is a bufoon.

Callistemon Thu 22-Oct-20 20:11:41
A moot point, Spangler as it neglects the Arts and the Classics.
It was a set up, but nobody fell for it. Rats.
Margaret Thatcher graduated in Chemistry & Law.

varian:

'He should be sent back to school for a proper scientific education'

No, it'd be a waste of taxpayers' money - and just

'projicere margaritas porcis'

vampirequeen

I had to look it up. I didn't learn Greek or Greek mythology. However I received an excellent education. Then inability to speak Greek or have a limited knowledge of Greek mythology doesn't make someone poorly educated.

Quite so!

a proper scientific education

But there are many branches to science.

Scylla and Charybdia. I thought it was a thread about plants.

See? I can't even spell it, never mind know what it is!

Varian Margaret Thatcher was a woman of her time and her commitment to Britain rock solid. Unlike John Major she would not have given the country away via the Maastricht Treaty. You might not agree with her politics, but by golly when she said something she stuck with it and for that I admired her.

The way you spelt it, it looks like a disease, LadyStardust!!

I don't think Thatcher really was commited to the British people . She was committed to a version of Britain she wanted and desired power & control.

Margaret Thatcher attended a prestigious girls grammar school in Headington ( Oxford) and thence to an Oxford College.Am not sure she was any more or less intelligent than Johnson, but would have studied both Latin and Greek there or certainly Latin, and Greek myth and performed Greek plays.As Spangler says, Johnson had an education in the classics, and therefore supposes everybody knows what he knows.He misjudges the audience as kitty says.

There are many branches of science, but a scientific education involves understanding evidenence, cause and effect and the interconnexion of the many branches of scientific knowledge.

It’s a normal sort of expression to me. I wouldn’t use it to children, but he wasn’t talking to children. I think it’s general knowledge.

(I am not pro-Johnson, by the way.)

PECS - She was committed to a version of Britain she wanted

Your comment interesting! I would say she was committed to a Britain she understood it to be and hence a woman of her time. Something I understand, since I also see Britain through my experience of life and hence why now an alien in a country I do not recognise.

lemongrove, Margaret Thatcher didn’t go to school in Oxford! She went to a grammar school in Lincolnshire, where she grew up. She went on to the University of Oxford, yes - but she wasn’t a schoolgirl there.

I’ve always been interested in history, Greek mythology has figured in that, Helen of Troy, Achilles, Paris and all that lot, questions come up on quiz shows quite often. So, Scylla and Charybdis is well known, BJ would have done better to have said “Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” but plain talking and honesty does not come easy to him.

In my book after a very slow start they are doing as well as anyone would, probably they need to lock down completely like Wales. There are far, far too many flouting the rules and not taking Covid seriously, time to stop socializing

Grandma70 She went into sixth form at Headington School and then Oxford University I read. Not that it matters.

It's Boris's way of showing the peasants how clever he is. It works for a bit but now his real lack of ability is so obvious.
Incidentally if you are interested in the subject there is a brilliant podcast called "Natalie Haynes stands up for....". on BBC sounds. She talks about characters from Ancient Greece. I've just listened to the one about the Amazons.

I suppose when something is very familiar to you, you assume others know what you're talking about.
My retired head teacher sister used to talk to me in what seemed like random letters of the alphabet and assume I had a clue ' the ABC spoke to the DEF after filling out a GHI in direct contravention of the JKL'.
I could probably baffle some with acronyms from my own profession as most of you could baffle me with yours.
Boris Johnson probably credits most of the UK public with more intelligence than he should judging by the number who can't seem to understand a few basic rules re covid.

He doesn't want to upset his own, South of the border by doing a full lockdown, sod the North at Tier 3 !

I didn't think he was showing off or trying to impress anyone at all. In fact his use of those words would imply that his speech wasn't scripted by anyone else but him.
Actually, I watched the speech with narrowed suspicious eyes but found that it made sense to me. There really are no easy answers to curbing Covid and the government are trying their hardest but in the face of howls of derision from those who somehow think they'd do it better but must be thanking God they're not landed with this impossible task.

LadyStardust

Scylla and Charybdia. I thought it was a thread about plants.

I wondered if it was about sexually transmitted diseases

I said a disease because I was trying not to lower the tone Oopsminty ?

But I was thinking the same as you

I would imagine someone writes or rewrites his speeches. So I can only assume they thought it scanned ok?

He could have used the Navy equivalent 'Between the devil and the deep blue sea'. Or from the Bible 'Between a rock and a hard place'.
Which others have suggested up thread.

Given that most things the PM says is scrutinised, I do wonder why he chose to say this.

Julie Burchill described Stephen Fry as 'a stupid person's idea of a clever person'.
I think that this equally applies to Johnson.

I have never heard of S&C.
Well, have heard of C, but nothing more.
I've been fortunate to have had a very good education, but I know very little about the Classics.