Watch: London Mayor Boris Johnson Stuck On A Zip Wire

Boris Johnson up a zip wire, today

It should all have been so simple. Boris Johnson, mayor of London, should be able to whizz across London’s Victoria Park as part of the London Games celebrations, on a 1,050ft zip wire, without anything untoward happening. He should be able to do this, while wearing a hard hat and waving two plastic Union flags, without becoming any more of a laughing stock than is appropriate for a grown man in a suit on a zip wire, wearing a hard hat and waving toy flags.

Sadly this is not what happened, as you will see from this video:

65ft from the end, his momentum stalled, and he was left hanging in mid-air for a full five minutes, while onlookers shouted encouraging things and laughed. Oh, the humiliation!

Putting a brave face on things, Boris yelled “it’s very, very well organised. It’s going well so far.”

And somewhere, far away, Mitt Romney smiled (probably).