Astral Codex Ten

Boris

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Boris

Article

Boris is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 05, 2021 and June 10, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “Boris still UK PM”; “when Orwell watches his friend Boris prepare for a job hunt”; “Orwell and Boris share a pretty cute bromance”. It most often appears alongside US, 1984, 2020 presidential election.

Metadata

  • Category: People
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: April 05, 2021
  • Last seen: June 10, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

2020 Predictions: Calibration Results
April 05, 2021 · Original source
POLITICS: 21. Democrats nominate Biden, and he remains nominee on Election Day: 90% 22. Balance of evidence available on Election Day supports (as per my opinion) Tara Reade accusation: 90% 23. Conditional on me asking about Reade on SSC survey, average survey-taker’s credence in her accusation is greater than 50%: 70% 24. …greater than 75%: 10% 25. …greater than credence in Kavanaugh accusation asked in the same format: 40% 26. Trump is re-elected President: 50% 27. Democrats keep the House: 70% 28. Republicans keep the Senate: 50% 29. Trump approval rating higher than 43% on June 1: 30% 30. Biden polling higher than Trump on June 1: 70% 31. At least one new Supreme Court Justice: 20% 32. I vote Democrat for President: 80% 33. Boris still UK PM: 90% 34. No new state leaves EU: 90% 35. UK, EU extend “transition” trade deal: 80% 36. Kim Jong-Un alive and in power: 60%
Inline links: 26. Trump is re-elected President: 50%
Your Book Review: Down And Out In Paris And London
June 10, 2021 · Original source
You might say these humiliations stem from Orwell’s sudden fall from low-middle-class respectability. But later Orwell will stress that proud, life-long tramps are fairly rare. Most of the people he encounters were also respectable low-to-middle-class people once. So this fall from grace and the obsession with some degree of keeping up appearances is shared by most tramps. Later, when Orwell watches his friend Boris prepare for a job hunt, we see the level of skill some tramps(I’m going to use this word as Orwell does) have acquired in transforming themselves into phantoms of their respectable pasts:
All the clothes he now had left were one suit, with one shirt, collar and tie, a pair of shoes almost worn out, and a pair of socks, all holes. He had also an overcoat which was to be pawned in the last extremity. He had a suitcase, a wretched twenty-franc cardboard thing, but very important, because the patron of the hotel believed that it was full of clothes—without that, he would probably have turned Boris out of doors. What it actually contained were the medals and photographs, various odds and ends, and huge bundles of love-letters. In spite of all this Boris managed to keep a fairly smart appearance. He shaved without soap and with a razor-blade two months old, tied his tie so that the holes did not show, and carefully stuffed the soles of his shoes with newspaper. Finally, when he was dressed, he produced an ink-bottle and inked the skin of his ankles where it showed through his socks. You would never have thought, when it was finished, that he had recently been sleeping under the Seine bridges.
Orwell and Boris share a pretty cute bromance for most of the Parisian section, spending nights together in terrible cheap rooms, discussing their future prospects. Usually, Boris(a Russian expat whose parents were murdered by the Bolsheviks) serves as the brains of the operation: