WIZARD WORDS OF BOZ

BANANA-BOOTED DEMIGOD

‘They look at David Beckham and think, what’s the point of all this education? They think they can have Posh and the Porsche and the swish pad in Cheshire. They can’t, unless they happen to be the one in ten million who has the gifts of the banana-booted demigod.’ Used March 29, 2007, about low educational standards of young white men. England footballer david Beckham was known for his ‘banana shot’, bending the ball in flight; his wife Victoria was ‘Posh Spice’ in the Spice Girls pop group.

BOOSTERISM

Used in daily Mail, July 30, 2019. When asked to explain what his economic policy was, ‘Boosterism’ was Boris’s reply. the word was originally coined by U.S. politician J. Proctor Knott, who used it to describe remote towns trying to emphasise their importance to outsiders.

BUNKUM, BALDERDASH, TOMMYROT AND FIDDLESTICKS

‘The civilised world must ignore idiots who tell us that... public schools demolish all hopes most cherished for the comprehensive system. This is twaddle, bunkum, balderdash, tommyrot, piffle and fiddlesticks of the most insidious kind.’ Eton chronicle, december 12, 1980. Boris wrote the article aged 16. Bunkum comes from 1820s america; balderdash is a 16th-century word for a jumble of drunks, tommyrot is English dialect, and fiddlesticks is from a 15th-century English nonsense word, fydylstks.

TESTADICAZZO

‘Have you ever driven very fast on a motorway? I have. Not long ago, I found myself at the wheel of a Ferrari Testadicazzo, or some such name, capable of 220mph. Who needs a car that fast, you ask… to bust out of the comfortable old corset of the 70mph restriction? It’s you. It’s me. It’s everyone.’ daily telegraph, July 12, 2001, in a call to raise the UK speed limit. there is no Ferrari testadicazzo; it is Italian slang for ‘d**khead’.