Notebook

One of the debates Boris had many times with his friends in his room at Balliol was whether "bogusness" or "bogusity" is the noun that goes with the word "bogus". Twenty years later, when telling Esquire magazine why the Rolling Stones are one of his favourites, he plumped for "bogusness": "What I like is the bogusness of it. I love the idea of these four middle-class white kids pretending to be rough around the edges." Oxford offered an inexhaustible supply of bogusness, and for Boris that was part of its attraction.

Andrew Gimson, "Boris: The Rise of Boris Johnson".