"Having gone from a controversy seeking journalist to national politician in less than a decade, Boris Johnson was a surprise choice for Conservative candidate for the capital’s mayoralty."
about Boris Johnson  at City Mayors.com

 Boris Johnson went from a controversy seeking journalist to national politician in less than a decade, and appears to have captivated London as a Mayor who can woo the eye's of the world as they move to capitalize on the prize of hosting the 2012 Olympics. His Mayday 2008 election victory over two-term mayor Ken Livingstone, who had been a frequent target of his witty barbs must now be transcended into a strategy for mobilizing a huge bureaucracy and demanding citizenry into the global capital City demonstrating how urban living can save the planet.

Johnson is the oldest of the four children of Stanley Johnson, a former Conservative MEP and employee of the European Commission and World Bank, and his first wife, painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl, the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a prominent barrister and president of the European Commission of Human Rights. Stanley Johnson also has two children by his second wife. On his father's side Johnson is great-grandson of Ali Kemal Bey, a liberal Turkish journalist and interior minister in the government of Damat Ferid Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, who was murdered during the Turkish War of Independence. During World War I, Boris's grandfather and great aunt were recognised as British subjects and took their grandmother's maiden name of Johnson. In reference to his cosmopolitan ancestry, Johnson has described himself as a "one-man melting pot" - with a combination of Muslims, Jews and Christians comprising his great-grandparentage.

Johnson was born in New York City, New York, USA, but his family returned to England soon afterwards as his mother had yet to take her Oxford finals. Johnson's sister Rachel was born a year later. As a child, Boris Johnson suffered from severe deafness and had to undergo several operations to have grommets inserted in his ears, and was reportedly rather quiet as a child. He was educated at the European School in Brussels,Ashdown House and then at Eton College, where he was a King's Scholar. He read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, as a Brackenbury scholar, and was elected President of the Oxford Union, at his second attempt. Along with David Cameron he was a member of Oxford's Bullingdon Club, a student dining society known for its raucous feasts.  At Oxford he became president of the world famous Oxford Union debating society, where he met fellow Etonian and future Conservative Party leader David Cameron. 

In 1987 he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen but the marriage lasted less than a year, finally being dissolved in 1993 Later that same year he married Marina Wheeler, a barrister, the daughter of journalist and broadcaster Sir Charles Wheeler and his Sikh Indian wife, Dip Singh. The Wheeler and Johnson families have known each other for decades, and Marina Wheeler was at the European School in Brussels at the same time as her future husband. They have two sons (Theodore Apollo and Milo Arthur) and two daughters (Lara Lettice and Cassia Peaches). Boris Johnson and his family currently live in Highbury, North London.

Upon graduating from Oxford with a 2:1 he lasted a week as a management consultant at L.E.K. Consulting ("Try as I might, I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix, and stay conscious"), before becoming a trainee reporter for The Times. Within a year he was sacked for falsifying a quotation from his godfather, Colin Lucas, later vice-chancellor of Oxford University. After a short time as a writer for the Wolverhampton Express & Star, he joined The Daily Telegraph in 1987 as leader and feature writer, and from 1989 to 1994 was the paper's European Community correspondent. He served as assistant editor from 1994 to 1999. His association with The Spectator began as political columnist from 1994 to 1995. In 1999 he became editor of The Spectator, where he stayed until December 2005 upon being appointed Shadow Minister for Higher Education.

He wrote an autobiographical account of his experience of the 2001 election campaign Friends, Voters, Countrymen: Jottings on the Stump. He is also author of three collections of journalism, Johnson's Column, Lend Me Your Ears and Have I Got Views For You. His first novel was Seventy-Two Virgins, published in 2004, and his next book will be The New British Revolution, though he has put publication on hold until after the London Mayoral election.[14] He was nominated in 2004 for a British Academy Television Award, and has attracted several unofficial fan clubs and sites. His official website and blog started in September 2004.

Johnson is a popular historian and his first documentary series, The Dream of Rome, comparing the Roman Empire and the modern-day European Union, was broadcast in 2006.

Mayor Johnson is married to Marina Wheeler, a barrister and daughter of the journalist Sir Charles Wheeler, and they have four children, Theodore Apollo, Milo Arthur, Lara Lettice and Cassia Peaches.  Johnson was previously married to the socialite Allegra Mostyn-Owen, whom he met at university.  Johnson is the author of one novel, Seventy-Two Virgins, an account of his 2001 election campaign Friends, Voters, Countrymen, and three collections of journalism, Johnson's Column, Lend Me Your Ears and Have I Got Views For You. 

"But as TS Eliot points out, between the thought and the action falls the shadow. Between the diet plan and the execution, between the idea and the reality, between the plot and the assassination falls the shadow.

"It is like our strategy for combating global warming. We find it easy enough to will the end; but can we will the means? I can fantasise about being a stone lighter, and bounding about the tennis court like a greased panther." July 29, 2008 [more @ .boris-johnson.com]