His job comes with a fur-lined crimson velvet robe, a beaver-skin hat with ostrich feathers and a giant gold chain that would make Mr. T proud.
But when the Lord Mayor of London — the Right Honorable Jeffrey Richard de Corban Evans, 4th Baron Mountevans, to give him his full title — came to Chicago, he had a humbler request: Could you show me the O’Hare International Airport pizza joint I’ve heard so much about?
Not to be confused with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who was recently elected by residents throughout London as the first Muslim leader of a major European city, the Lord Mayor serves as the figurehead of London’s “Square Mile,” the British capital’s financial district.
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He was in Chicago on Friday to reassure U.S. investors and to call for “a measured and calm” approach to the chaos caused by Britain’s so-called Brexit vote.
But during a meeting at Legal & General Investment Management America’s Wacker Drive offices, he expressed his curiosity about British newspaper reports that Prime Minister David Cameron agreed to hold the fateful referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union over a slice of pizza on the concourse of O’Hare’s Terminal 3 in 2012.
“We had a very kind greeter who didn’t tell us about it until after we’d left the airport,” the Lord Mayor said, “but when we go back to the airport this afternoon, we’ve asked to go and have a look.”
British General Counsel to Chicago Stephen Bridges said he had been unable to establish for certain which pizza restaurant Cameron dined at, but said, “Our best guess is Uno.”
Evans’ whistle stop tour of Chicago didn’t give him time to meet with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who might have been interested to learn that the Lord Mayor is more or less directly elected by the banks that control the financial district rather than by London citizens.
Rahm, though, is lucky he doesn’t have to wear heavy, sweaty ceremonial garb, according to Evans, who was dressed in a dapper business suit Friday.
“It weighs a ton,” he said of his regalia. “When we had the service for the Queen’s 90th birthday recently, mercifully the sun wasn’t out but the Queen was about 12 minutes late and you couldn’t really look at your watch because there were cameras at the front of the cathedral. It was very warm.”
One can imagine the discomfort.
— Kim Janssen