Boris Johnson's gift to Magic Bus children.. sets of cricket

gears..

Boris Johnson Playing Cricket In Mumbai During India Trip (PICTURES) The Huffington Post UK/PA | Posted: 29/11/2012 11:12 GMT Updated: 29/11/2012 13:03 GMT

While politicians back in the UK are locking horns over the future of the press, Boris

Johnson is, well, being Boris.

On Wednesday night, Johnson met the England cricket team at a gala reception in Mumbai,

where he chatted with batsman Kevin Pietersen, whom he described as having a "zen-like

focus" at the crease. The pair also shared batting tips.

Boris pictured playing cricket with local Mumbai school boys on Juhu Beach

He appears to have taken the advice to heart, being pictured playing cricket with local

Mumbai school boys on Juhu Beach after meeting Bollywood film directors.

The mayor of London is being given the full VIP treatment on his arrival in India's trade

capital Mumbai - with an armed guard keeping watch outside his hotel room.

The mayor of London is being given the full VIP treatment on his arrival in India's trade capital Mumbai

A source said: "There's four or five guards on his floor, although one does look a bit dozy."

Mumbai is much hotter than Delhi and Hyderabad at this time of year and the film

executives who had chosen to meet Mr Johnson wore pale linen suits and aviator

sunglasses.

After enjoying talks on the bar's terrace, decked out with white linen sofas and overlooking

the Indian Ocean, the mayor headed indoors for an hour-long meeting.

Friday, Dec 14 2012 3AM 16°C 6AM 20°C 5-Day Forecast

After a six-day trade visit to secure jobs in London, Boris is still best known in India for hanging from THAT zipwire

London Mayor Boris Johnson joined in a game of 23-a-side football with

children from the slums of Mumbai He visited to see the work of charity Magic Bus, which was set up by a British

organisation

By MATT CHORLEY and STEVE NOLAN PUBLISHED: 06:40 GMT, 30 November 2012 | UPDATED: 17:20 GMT, 30 November 2012

He is supposed to be drumming up major foreign investment for London. But after a six-day photo-opportunity packed tour across India, Boris Johnson is still best known as the man who got stuck on a zipwire, according to one of the country’s top talk show hosts.

Many people in India have not recognised the mop-haired Mayor at all, and some have mistaken him for tennis star Boris Becker and even the King of England.

But chat show host Arnab Goswami – dubbed India’s answer to David Letterman claims millions of Indians do know Mr Johnson for his high wire antics during the London Olympics.

Boris Johnson has used a six-day trade visit to drum up publicity for London, playing cricket on Juhu beach with Mumbai school boys, taking part in a football game, meeting Bollywood film directors and appearing on one of India's biggest chat shows

Mr Johnson ended up dangling from a zipwire in London's Victoria Park in August when a publicity stunt at a public viewing area for the Olympic Games went awry leaving him stranded some 15 feet off the ground

‘Our viewers certainly know who Boris Johnson is because of the Olympics and that memorable moment when he was dangling on a rope, which made headlines all over the place,’ Mr Goswani told reporters.

‘I think that Mr Johnson is an up-and-coming politician. Everyone in India saw the Olympics so they are interested in him personally. Many people in India believe that Boris Johnson is going to go on to greater things.’

But when the London Mayor appeared on his TV show, he played down talk of one day making a bid for Number 10.

‘I can assure that is about as likely as me being decapitated by a frizbee,’ he said.

Mr Johnson also revealed how, when stuck on the zipwire while promoting the 2012 Games, he looked in vain to his special branch protection officer for help.

‘They gave me a security guard during the Olympics. He normally guards Tony Blair but I was given a security guard during the Olympics. I spotted him the crowd and I said: “Carl, can you do something?”

‘Very slowly he reached in to his pocket and took out his mobile phone and took a photograph. That was his contribution to my predicament.’

Tough talk: London mayor Boris Johnson talks to India's equivalent of David Letterman, Arnab Goswami

Earlier Mr Johnson used a trip to the Bombay Stock Exchange to urge George Osborne to consider cutting the top rate of tax.

The London Mayor compared the coalition’s 45 per cent tax rate for highest earners to the 30 per cent paid in India and said the Chancellor should ‘brood on’ whether Britain could be made more attractive for entrepreneurs .

He has spent almost a week on the sub-continent wooing playing football, cricket riding a bicycle and joking about his Bollywood dancing. Labour said he should be focussing on jobs.

Take the bull by the horns: London Mayor Boris Johnson poses with a bronze replica of a bull during his visit to the Bombay Stock Exchange

Making his point: Boris Johnson speaks during his visit at the Bombay Stock Exchange

The Mayor has insisted his trip is crucial to attracting more investment in London.

Today he met Mumbai-based businessmen who suggested the UK capital could lure more trade through lower rates of tax and less regulation.

Speaking at the Bombay Stock Exchange Mr Johnson claimed the tax regime ‘needed to be looked at’.

He added: ‘You've got tax rates here of only 30 per cent - a point George Osborne might like to brood on. It's 10 per cent for freelance income, and of course you have a market of about 600 million people under 25.’

Skilful: London Mayor Boris Johnson shows off his sporting prowess by joining in a game of football with slum children in Mumbai

Sporting: The children were more interested in the sporting equipment on offer than the presence of either Mr Johnson, right, or England cricketer Kevin Pieterson

Charity: Mr Johnson, pictured playing with a cricket bat and ball, right, and with cricketer Kevin Pieterson (back right) and rugby legend Lawrence Dallaglio (back left) left, took time out from his six day tour of India to see the work of the Magic Bus project

He later told reporters: ‘One businessman said to me this morning that he loved London, he loved the quality of life in London. There are so many attractions of living in London that you can't find anywhere else. That is a very high card.

‘But another businessman asked about making London more attractive in terms of tax and regulation and certainly the tax regime. As I have said many times before, that needs to be looked at.’

Mr Johnson also posed with a bull statue at the exchanges' main entrance, gripping its horns as if he was a rodeo rider desperately clinging on.

Goal: Boris Johnson plays football with Lawrence Dallaglio, centre, and Mumbai children

Charity: Boris visited the Magic Bus project, which uses sport to engage children on the edges of society in education and improving life skills

He has attracted huge media attention during his visit, but faced claims from the Labour party that he should have made trade trips during his first term as London Mayor.

A Labour source said: ‘Boris should spend less time on Bollywood dancing, cricket and football and more time meeting Indian business people. Taxpayers wanting getting jobs not on a glorified jolly.’

Mr Johnson might not be a seasoned sportsman - despite being mistaken for Tennis legend Boris Becker during his trip of India - but he was able to show off his prowess on the football field yesterday as he joined in a game of 23-a-side in the Mumbai slums.

Never one to find himself on the sidelines, the London Mayor donned a charity T shirt and played football with children from the Magic Bus project, an enterprise ran by a British charity.

Until now Mr Johnson had enjoyed the royal treatment on his six day tour of the subcontinent and had been welcomed by everyone from Bollywood film producers to state governors.

Line-up: Boris Johnson, back centre, with Lawrence Dallaglio, back left, Kevin Pieterson and slum children from Mumbai

Helping: Kevin Pieterson, left, spent time with the Magic Bus children and watched as Boris Johnson gave the youngsters some coaching

But the mayor took the afternoon off to meet some of the city's poorest children when he visited Mumbai's port slum, where the average monthly wage is just £25, untreated sewage flows through the streets and there is no running water or electricity.

Just two years ago, the field where the children played was covered in 'defecation and broken glass' according to one cameraman who had visited and had to dodge puddles of sewage while the children ran in bare feet.

Now there was grass and the children - who would otherwise have been out gathering rubbish from the dumps surrounding their homes so their parents could sell the scraps - were able to play freely.

Unconcerned by the presence of Mr Johnson, England cricketer Kevin Pieterson or Rugby World Cup winner Lawrence Dallaglio, the children rushed to grab cricket equipment from the trio.

Joining the youngsters for a game of football afterwards, Mr Johnson said that the children had 'zap' after being hit repeatedly as the group kicked footballs at each other.

Indian journalists asked the mayor about his favourite sports. Cricket, tick. Football, tick. But they had no idea about Eton’s Wall Game and Mr Johnson quickly realised it was best not to try to explain.

It was then time for a round of the hokey-cokey, with what appeared to be some Maori dance moves led by Dallaglio.

By that stage, the mayor’s convoy was moving on. Back through the slum and to Mumbai’s five-star Taj Mahal hotel.

The Boris diaries: squeezed into a too-small T, Boris aka the incredible hulk thunders down the beach

Incredible hulk: Boris plays the Ball Game with former rugby player Lawrence Dellaglio and various

children involved in the Magic Bus Project in Mumbai today (Pictures: PA)

Day 5 - Thursday

10am: Boris started his day at a beachfront restaurant meeting top Bollywood insiders like director Vikram Bhatt and

producer Sajid Nadiadwala to promote London as a film location. He was joined by the lovely David Parfitt, producer of Shakespeare in Love and My Week With Marilyn, who is chair of Film London. After the meeting, Boris wandered

down to the beach and joined in a cricket game with a bunch of kids. At one point he was hit in the stomach by the bowler. Another ball he hoofed so hard it went into the sea and the children had to wade in to get it. It was apparently a coincidence, but the brand name of the cricket bat translated from Hindi was Mumbai King. Boris told my LBC colleague Tom Cheal that his team tried to secure a walk-on part in a Bollywood film but decided that would be "too frivolous".

2pm: We drove into the heart of the Bombay slums and even the most well-travelled and wordly of the press corps

were taken aback. Tiny hovels patched together with cardboard and corrugated iron with dirt floors. Men openly defecating by the side of the road. Mangy dogs. Hoards of children playing in the dirt. Piles of rubbish.

We were visiting Magic Bus – a London-based charity that provides sports facilities for local children. Tessa Jowell, the former Olympics minister who volunteers on the project for one week a year every year, pointed out that they have nowhere else to play. This dry grassy field in the middle of the slum gives them the chance to run around safely.

Boris handed over big bags of sports kit. The Mayor, squeezed into a T-shirt several sizes too small, then joined KP and former England rugby player Lawrence Dallaglio playing games with the kids. The most unusual was called the school game (but was swiftly renamed murderball by the media), which involved one group of children running across the field while the rest kicked balls at them. I’m not quite sure Boris was supposed to kick them with such gusto, but the children didn’t seem to mind.

10pm: Boris has just come out to the hotel gardens to talk to reporters about the Leveson report. Unsurprisingly, for a

Tory and a journalist, he agrees with the Prime Minister on the dangers of underpinning the independent commission with law. Interestingly, as he heads up the Met, he suggested that off the record police briefings would continue. "Clearly briefings are going to remain an important part of public life. Officials one way or the other are going to have to trust in the media," he said. As for the cosy relationship between press and politicians, he said it should be "like that between a dog and a lampost...". Even for the most serious of subjects, he can't resist a quip.

INDIA LONDON MAYOR JONSON VISIT Location: MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, India

November 29, 2012

London Mayor Boris Johnson (C) plays with the underprivileged children from the Mumbai

based Magic Bus NGO, in Mumbai, India, 29 November 2012. Boris Johnson is on a five-day

visit to India.

Credit: EPA

INDIA LONDON MAYOR JONSON VISIT Location: MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, India

November 29, 2012

London Mayor Boris Johnson (L) plays with the underprivileged children from the Mumbai based

Magic Bus NGO, in Mumbai, India, 29 November 2012. Boris Johnson is on a five-day visit to

India.

Credit: EPA

Day out with the Magic Bus charity & Boris Johnson (29/11/2012)

Today's Paper » NATIONAL

Published: November 30, 2012 00:00 IST | Updated: November 30,

2012 05:22 IST

Magic moments

CHASING DREAMS:England’s star batsman Kevin Pietersen (in khaki shorts), now touring

India with the national team, and London Mayor Boris Johnson (left), who is on a visit to

Mumbai, play football with slum children during an event organised by NGO Magic Bus in the

metropolis on Thursday. Magic Bus is a London-based sports charity that aims to promote

education and life skills for Indian children.— Photo: Vivek Bendre

More In: NATIONAL | Today's Paper

Kevin Pietersen with Lawrence Dallaglio and Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

Friday, November 30, 2012

England cricketer Kevin Pietersen, along with England rugby player Lawrence Dallaglio and [right] Boris Johnson,

Mayor of London interacted and played with the children of the Magic Bus Foundation in Mumbai on Thursday.

by godesi

Boris Johnson’s Bollywood jolly: London Mayor calls for tax cuts back

home

London Mayor Boris Johnson joined in a game of 23-a-side football with children from the slums of Mumbai

He visited to see the work of charity Magic Bus, which was set up by a British organisation

By

Matt Chorley and Steve Nolan

PUBLISHED:

01:40 EST, 30 November 2012

UPDATED:

05:46 EST, 30 November 2012

Boris Johnson today urged George Osborne to consider cutting the top rate of tax as he rounded off rounded off his

six-day tour of India.

The London Mayor compared the coalition’s 45 per cent tax rate for highest earners to the 30 per cent paid in India

and said the Chancellor should ‘brood on’ whether Britain could be made more attractive for entrepreneurs .

Mr Johnson was visiting the Bombay Stock Exchange, after almost of week on the sub-continent wooing playing

football, cricket riding a bicycle and joking about his Bollywood dancing. Labour said he should be focussing on jobs.

Skilful: London Mayor Boris Johnson shows off his sporting prowess by joining in a game of football with slum

children in Mumbai

Sporting: The children were more interested in the sporting equipment on offer than the presence of either Mr

Johnson, right, or England cricketer Kevin Pieterson

Charity: Mr Johnson, pictured playing with a cricket bat and ball, right, and with cricketer Kevin Pieterson (back right)

and rugby legend Lawrence Dallaglio (back left) left, took time out from his six day tour of India to see the work of the

Magic Bus project

The Mayor has insisted his trip is crucial to attracting more investment in London.

Today he met Mumbai-based businessmen

who suggested the UK capital could lure more trade through lower rates

of tax and less regulation.

Speaking at the Bombay Stock Exchange Mr Johnson claimed the tax regime ‘needed to be looked at’.

He added: ‘You’ve got tax rates here

of only 30 per cent – a point George Osborne might like to brood on.

It’s 10 per cent for freelance income, and of course you have a market

of about 600 million people under 25.’

He later told reporters: ‘One

businessman said to me this morning that he loved London, he loved the

quality of life in London. There are so many attractions of living in

London that you can’t find anywhere else. That is a very high card.

‘But another businessman asked about

making London more attractive in terms of tax and regulation and

certainly the tax regime. As I have said many times before, that needs

to be looked at.’

Mr Johnson also posed with a bull statue at the exchanges’ main entrance, gripping its horns as if he was a rodeo

rider desperately clinging on.

He has attracted huge media attention during his visit, but faced claims from the Labour party that he should have

made trade trips during his first term as London Mayor.

A Labour source said: ‘Boris should spend less time on Bollywood dancing, cricket and football and more time

meeting Indian business people. Taxpayers wanting getting jobs not on a glorified jolly.’

Mr Johnson might not be a seasoned sportsman -

despite being mistaken for Tennis legend Boris Becker during his trip

of India – but he was able to show off his

prowess on the football field yesterday as he joined in a game of

23-a-side in the Mumbai slums.

Never one to find himself on the

sidelines, the London Mayor donned a charity T shirt and played football

with children from the Magic Bus project, an enterprise ran by a

British charity.

Until

now Mr Johnson had enjoyed the royal treatment on his six day tour of

the subcontinent and had been welcomed by everyone from Bollywood film

producers to state governors.

But the mayor took the afternoon off to meet some of the city’s poorest children when he visited Mumbai’s port slum,

where the average monthly wage is just £25, untreated sewage flows through the streets and there is no running

water or electricity.

Just two years ago, the field where the children played was covered in ‘defecation and broken glass’ according to one

cameraman who had visited and had to dodge puddles of sewage while the children ran in bare feet.

Now there was grass and the children – who would otherwise have been out gathering rubbish from the dumps

surrounding their homes so their parents could sell the scraps – were able to play freely.

Unconcerned by the presence of Mr Johnson, England cricketer Kevin Pieterson or Rugby World Cup winner

Lawrence Dallaglio, the children rushed to grab cricket equipment from the trio.

Goal: Boris Johnson plays football with Lawrence Dallaglio, centre, and Mumbai children

Charity: Boris visited the Magic Bus project, which uses sport to engage children on the edges of society in education

and improving life skills

Joining the youngsters for a game of football afterwards, Mr Johnson said that the children had ‘zap’ after being hit

repeatedly as the group kicked footballs at each other.

Indian journalists asked the mayor about his favourite sports. Cricket, tick. Football, tick. But they had no idea about

Eton’s Wall Game and Mr Johnson quickly realised it was best not to try to explain.

It was then time for a round of the hokey-cokey, with what appeared to be some Maori dance moves led by Dallaglio.

By that stage, the mayor’s convoy was moving on. Back through the slum and to Mumbai’s five-star Taj Mahal hotel.

Line-up: Boris Johnson, back centre, with Lawrence Dallaglio, back left, Kevin Pieterson and slum children from

Mumbai

Helping: Kevin Pieterson, left, spent time with the Magic

Bus children and watched as Boris Johnson gave the

youngsters some coaching

PHOTO GALLERY