‘Boris’

Asked during the 2019 election to comment on Boris Johnson's use of word ‘piccaninny’, Nigel Farage replied: ‘It's not very pretty, but that's Boris.’11 Interview BBC Radio Five Live, transcribed by Josh Milton, Pink News, 3.12.19. Oddly, though unusually, utterance was nudged out reach discussion according it a sort natural inevitability, as if vocabulary were direct emanation an essence: Boris. Oh, come on, you know what is like. But in sense, course, we don't like – only because general, here public domain, are really acquainted with celebrities read about, also this particular celebrity famously mendacious. What truth about him image constructed from he has said or written. The actual position thus almost exact opposite one implied Farage: that language expression personality, impression personality product language. At point, students literature find themselves familiar ground. After all, linguistically generated illusion knowable person stock trade realist narrative. That say, elementary subject critical essay writing, character. For reason, talking creates confusion. Agreeing name naturalises illusion, blurring awareness personal acquaintance rhetorical effect. To try and keep clear article, I shall identify character Boris, ‘Boris’. When have occasion refer historical individual, call Johnson. spent 20 years flat his back top scaffolding, so rigid arm became permanently wonky, he's left us gorgeous slightly bonkers symbolic scene captures spirit United Kingdom early 18th century.33 Text at https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020. praise painting, ‘the Kingdom’, conventional enough. characterising element, equivalent children up chimneys, carefully inserted note schoolboy colloquialism ‘wonky’, ‘bonkers’. Through their wrongness formal context, these adjectives signify idiosyncrasy such: all explicitly, ‘Boris’ peeking over Prime Minister's shoulder winking chums audience. This effect derives its political meaning general perception politicians inauthentic liars necessarily, people who say blandly things they fear consequences saying think. flaunts lexical waywardness which suggests untroubled such fears somehow politician amateur one, whose prose, trademark hair, refuses usual professional smoothness signifies independence mind. In both examples, typically, fearless nonconformity itself part illusion: anything unorthodox being said, vague atmosphere unorthodoxy created linguistic register. second dimension no less obvious: line chimneys joke. There obviously question sending chimneys; when conjures conceivable feature post-Brexit Britain, kidding. integral Keir Starmer complained habit ‘flippancy’ despatch box,55 Press conference, 20.12.20 (https://labour.org.uk/press/keir-starmer-speech-on-latest-coronavirus-restictions/) appears genres: exchanges Parliament, books, articles, speeches, interviews. indicative example, take book Churchill. It starts sequence set just after fall France May 1940, point Churchill's magnificent refusal acknowledge probability defeat: therefore calls for tragic narrative tone, high stakes heroic characters, whole how punctuated silly jokes French. Their generals wear ‘Clouseau-like kepis’, ‘abject’ Minister, Paul Reynaud, ‘knew heart British interlocutors could scarcely believe French possessed origami army: kept folding’.66 Johnson, Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History (London: Hodder Stoughton, 2014), chapter 1. illustrates two peculiar features Borisian indifferent context: can crop situation, even own intention, makes evidently inappropriate. And other funny. comedian any more than politician. He after-dinner speaker: pleasantries look nothing polite chuckle. So them? jokes, Freud ‘comic degradation’ be tactic against solemn constraint imposed whatever affects elevated. reverence exacted seriousness represents psychic expenditure, compensated joke which, momentarily, revered object appear low.77 Sigmund Freud, Jokes Relation Unconscious, tr James Strachey, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976), pp 260-3. A mechanism kind surely work ‘Boris's’ otherwise puzzlingly weak jokes. negotation employment rights serious business state-entailing considerations fairness, national sovereignty, balancing rival interests. Important rather boring, forms mental burden, then lightened daft vision steampunk eccentrics eager chance send chimneys. delicatessens Elgin Crescent, sawdust sodden tears. months, years, Carla Powell will go into mourning, her plumage black night. Mandy dead, dead ere prime!88 original Daily Telegraph piece elusive, reproduced article Reiss Smith, 12.12.19. Mandelson's resignation 23 December 1998. moment … recapture those seafaring ancestors immortalised above exploits brought riches something important global perspective. our ambition. lies port, vessel puffs sail …99 pour glass inch raw shoosh some soda water me moment. done, retired armchair put my feet up, sipping mixture carefree enjoyment, Caesar having tent day overcame Nervii.1010 P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves 1991), p. 96. You heard right. Your kettle, your washing machine, cooker, heating, plug-in electric vehicle lot them get juice cleanly without guilt breezes blow around islands …. remember used sneer wind power, twenty ago, wouldn't pull skin off rice pudding. They forgot history country. offshore puffed sails Drake Raleigh Nelson, propelled country commercial greatness. 1111 Conference speech, 6.10.20, text https://www.conservatives.com/news/boris-johnson-read-the-prime-ministers-keynote-speech-in-full Admirers stories may characters fundamentally unlike: Bertie honourable bit dim, whereas neither. well true, decisive difference much moral structural. stories, incongruities voice entertaining doubleness: once accidents caused Bertie's cluelessness comic effects deliberately devised Wodehouse. sea amid fragments education, craft under firm artistic control. case ‘Boris’, separation impossible, there distinction between author: suppose Johnson both. Consequently, character's innocent confusion author's conscious manipulation run another; opposition articulated structure evasive facetiousness; double voicing art duplicity. Finally, besides paraded idiosyncrasy, quoting, definingly old-fashioned. contentious bits often antique (up-to-date racists talk ‘piccaninnies’ ‘big white chiefs’); snippets poetry suggest Palgrave's Golden Treasury; English history, populated dogs imperial visions, seems closer 1,066 All (1930) syllabus himself likely encountered. projected repertoire humorous old buffer, always ready defend retention Marbles ‘Rule, Britannia!’ Proms.1414 ‘“Someone needs restore marbles”: reacts George Clooney's comment’, Telegraph, 12.2.14; ‘Proms row: end “cringing embarrassment” UK history’, Guardian, 25.8.20. thinks exploitation labour, typical cites practice ended 1875. time hearts winning, inevitably win, armies science coming aid morale-boosting, bugle-blasting excitement Wellington's Prussian allies through woods afternoon Waterloo.1515 Mail, 28.11.20 another thing, conceit takes inherently issue pandemic case, carbon-free energy previous example nationalises it. reference ‘Prussian allies’ intended, think, felicitous acknowledgment first vaccine approved partly German; nonetheless striking clinical achievement should figured terms battle neighbouring insistently combatively history: Drake, Wellington. over-motivated serving decor nationalist ideology. appeal suffers interesting uncertainty address, precisely archaism. theory, icons endeavour unite shared memories. As Brits, thrill well-remembered bugle. reality unity imaginary: many island story, Moreover, writing knows lack connection, insists it: complains periodically cultural loss, modish ignorant teachers deprive nation's youth heritage.1616 E.g., ‘Trendy teaching “producing generation numbskulls”’, 2.7.09. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196911/Trendy-teaching-producing-generation-history-numbskulls.html dwells relish Waterloo’, snub about. rhetoric inclusive partisan same breath, Brexit itself: gestures towards community, speaker's membership exclusive club. merely style minor pathology Britain's decline. Nationalist themes endlessly repeated adorned verbal anthology markers Britishness. ideology constantly acknowledges belatedness withdrawals populist assertion self-parodying coterie. Unlike conservative heroes samples, game long why never says straight.