The mowing season is well and truly upon us, and Hexhamite again turns his attention to giving the lawns their regular paring down. Nothing is more therapeutic than putting the old motor-mower through her paces on a fine day. A well manicured bit of turf does wonders to soothe a choleric brain.
As the MowMaster 5000 trundled around the park west of the château, the heady aroma of two-stroke and grass clippings tickled my nostrils as the early afternoon sun beat gently on my brow. Birds chirruped. My mind sauntered to thoughts of warm beer and cricket on the village green. Perhaps the vicar could be persuaded to bowl a few overs. The district nurse on her sit-up-and- beg velocipede might stop to cast an appraising eye over the gentlemen decked out in their best flannels. Then back to the clubhouse for cucumber sandwiches followed by strawberries and cream.
Thunk! With a pained grunt the pasture chopper shuddered to a halt and the engine cut out. On investigation it transpired that the blade had sliced into a section of wrought iron railing poking out of the sod. Several minutes of excavation with a turf cutter revealed the aforementioned railing to be attached to a flagstone path buried 6 inches beneath the grama.
What kind of muttonhead would lay turf over paving slabs? Surely only a complete ninny would consider such an act of doltishness? Actually my prized turf was laid by a “professional” subcontracted by the same posse of cowboys responsible for erecting my homestead.
Is there no regulation of subcontractors? No gilded certificate which confirms that an artisan is vaguely qualified? Apparently the only requirement for proclaiming oneself a Landscape Gardner is possession of a shovel and a van emblazoned with a logo to that effect. Some of the more enterprising fellows may stretch to a petrol mower with which to scalp your verdant patch. Many are simply scheming dole wallahs aiming to score a few bob to supplement their subsistence handouts with promises to lay what is euphemistically termed “meadow turf”. This means that they have stopped by the side of the road and torn up a few strips of Old Macdonald's best grazing, which they will happily throw down on your rock scattered plot.
When I was seven years old, I managed to accidentally split open the head of a school chum using a hammer. I do not however, lay claim to being a brain surgeon! I own a leather biker jacket, but I do not believe I am a MotoGP champion. I possess a set of socket spanners still I pay a trained mechanic to service my car. Yet armies of itinerant pikies who don't know a dandelion from a dachshund are roaming the countryside claiming to be professional garden architects and arborists.
Astonishingly these unskilled lawn rangers are employed by building contractors throughout the land to cover up the rubble strewn landfill that will soon become your garden. Alan Titchmarsh they are not.
Sunday 30 May 2010
Sunday 23 May 2010
Bedroom Bedlam
Ninja nincompoop Toshitsugu Takamatsu spouted that “Life is Change”. His followers seized on this statement as evidence of the honourable fraud's wisdom and sound judgement. But if the old boy had possessed real wit or understanding he would have said “Change is Irritating”, or even “Life is full of changes designed to wind you up the wrong way.”
Take retailers, a breed who delight in changing things around for sport. Every time you pop into the local Hypermarket for a frozen pizza they have been relocating the damned things to where you least expect. Like all males I want to steam into a store, stride to the correct aisle, retrieve my groceries and high tail it out again without pausing for thought. But we cannot do this can we? No! Because the nightshift fairies at the local stack-em-high have been moving everything around again. Instead of a margherita, we find ourselves clutching a less than appetising pack of pan scrubs or a potted plant. So you now waste half a day of your life trawling up and down every aisle in search of the mozzarella topped comestibles. That is time you are never getting back people.
If they are not changing the location, they are changing the product. This weekend, (for reasons which need not be elaborated on), Hexhamite Hall found itself in want of a marital bed. The previous one having collapsed in a heap of duck down and tinder. In spite of my protestations about the glorious barbecue weather, the Lady of the Manor determined that we should sojourn in a certain well known Swedish purveyor of flat pack furnishings. The prospect of meatballs and lingonberry sauce aside, this is not how I envisaged spending a sunny afternoon. However needs must, when the alternative is a pillow on the flagstones.
Being people of taste and decorum, our boudoir is furnished with all matching furniture from the big blue and yellow store. Obtaining a matching wood effect bedstead would be relatively straightforward, would it not? It would not. The Ikea elves in their wisdom have decided to “revamp” our bedroom range. Rather than having the hassle of choosing from a range of elegant stained woods, wouldn't we prefer that all our furniture look as if it has been limewashed by Tom Sawyer? Understated sophistication is out, in favour of design that appears as if a toddler has been left in charge of the paint pots. Furthermore, they have also decided that a range of sizes is out, so Ikea beds now come in two sizes – gymnastics beam and too-bloody-big-for-your-house.
This Scandinavian thinking means that we now have a bed that no longer matches anything else and which fills the room from wall to wall. The mattress looks like a postage stamp surrounded by a moat of springs, and the moggies now have to approach a nap on the eider like an assault on Fort Smerzen.
Retailers of the world, hear my heartfelt plea. For pity's sake stop changing things!
Take retailers, a breed who delight in changing things around for sport. Every time you pop into the local Hypermarket for a frozen pizza they have been relocating the damned things to where you least expect. Like all males I want to steam into a store, stride to the correct aisle, retrieve my groceries and high tail it out again without pausing for thought. But we cannot do this can we? No! Because the nightshift fairies at the local stack-em-high have been moving everything around again. Instead of a margherita, we find ourselves clutching a less than appetising pack of pan scrubs or a potted plant. So you now waste half a day of your life trawling up and down every aisle in search of the mozzarella topped comestibles. That is time you are never getting back people.
If they are not changing the location, they are changing the product. This weekend, (for reasons which need not be elaborated on), Hexhamite Hall found itself in want of a marital bed. The previous one having collapsed in a heap of duck down and tinder. In spite of my protestations about the glorious barbecue weather, the Lady of the Manor determined that we should sojourn in a certain well known Swedish purveyor of flat pack furnishings. The prospect of meatballs and lingonberry sauce aside, this is not how I envisaged spending a sunny afternoon. However needs must, when the alternative is a pillow on the flagstones.
Being people of taste and decorum, our boudoir is furnished with all matching furniture from the big blue and yellow store. Obtaining a matching wood effect bedstead would be relatively straightforward, would it not? It would not. The Ikea elves in their wisdom have decided to “revamp” our bedroom range. Rather than having the hassle of choosing from a range of elegant stained woods, wouldn't we prefer that all our furniture look as if it has been limewashed by Tom Sawyer? Understated sophistication is out, in favour of design that appears as if a toddler has been left in charge of the paint pots. Furthermore, they have also decided that a range of sizes is out, so Ikea beds now come in two sizes – gymnastics beam and too-bloody-big-for-your-house.
This Scandinavian thinking means that we now have a bed that no longer matches anything else and which fills the room from wall to wall. The mattress looks like a postage stamp surrounded by a moat of springs, and the moggies now have to approach a nap on the eider like an assault on Fort Smerzen.
Retailers of the world, hear my heartfelt plea. For pity's sake stop changing things!
Sunday 16 May 2010
Postman Prat
I despair at our morning postal service. Long gone are the days of receiving the mail before going to work. The residents of the leafy corner that I am annoyed to call home are grateful if our Postie manages to drag his lethargic backside around the doors by 2pm.
What use is that? Heaven forbid that a letter requires same day attention. Anything important now spends half the day lying on the doormat of Hexamite Towers, being harried by the two aggressive felines who rule my roost.
If our army of Postal Delivery Operatives are incapable of delivering at anything resembling a sensible time, can I suggest that the Royal Mail mandarins dispense with the “morning” delivery altogether ? Instead they could pop round in the evening in their shiny red vans, so our correspondence is at least on hand to be dealt with at cock crow.
This would allow us to be home to sign for Recorded Delivery items. This is what Royal Mail calls its guaranteed next day delivery service. I thought that was called First Class post, but apparently not. First Class these days takes on average 3-4 days. Second Class is anybodies guess.
We are told a signature is required for our security and convenience and guarantees that our valuable mail does not fall into the wrong hands. Fair enough in the days when we were on hand to answer the door in our dressing gowns, FT tucked under one arm and chomping down on a slice of wholemeal smothered in finest golden shred. When the Postie is only knocking on the door in the middle of the afternoon it is a different matter. “Aha, but we have a solution,” say Royal Mail. “we’ll leave a card informing you that we called. Just pop round our depot and collect it at your convenience.” To facilitate this process they’ve made the opening times of the collection office a very convenient 7am - 12pm. Wonderful!
What world are these people living in? Slap me with a damp cauliflower if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that most of us are already facing the daily rat race by 7am. Yours truly will have already been at the sharp end for a good couple of hours. By the time we are able to steal a lunch break, the buggers have shut up shop and gone home! That is assuming the collection depot is close enough at hand to nip out to in the first place. In any case they need at least 24 hours to return items to the depot, which is barely two miles away. This means you cannot collect your cherished post until the next day at the earliest. In my case I have to wait for a day off, which could be anything up to six days. So much for guaranteed next day delivery.
In our 24/7, world that never sleeps, is it really too much to ask that Royal Mail set opening hours convenient to the customer, rather than the postal worker who fancies an afternoon off?
What use is that? Heaven forbid that a letter requires same day attention. Anything important now spends half the day lying on the doormat of Hexamite Towers, being harried by the two aggressive felines who rule my roost.
If our army of Postal Delivery Operatives are incapable of delivering at anything resembling a sensible time, can I suggest that the Royal Mail mandarins dispense with the “morning” delivery altogether ? Instead they could pop round in the evening in their shiny red vans, so our correspondence is at least on hand to be dealt with at cock crow.
This would allow us to be home to sign for Recorded Delivery items. This is what Royal Mail calls its guaranteed next day delivery service. I thought that was called First Class post, but apparently not. First Class these days takes on average 3-4 days. Second Class is anybodies guess.
We are told a signature is required for our security and convenience and guarantees that our valuable mail does not fall into the wrong hands. Fair enough in the days when we were on hand to answer the door in our dressing gowns, FT tucked under one arm and chomping down on a slice of wholemeal smothered in finest golden shred. When the Postie is only knocking on the door in the middle of the afternoon it is a different matter. “Aha, but we have a solution,” say Royal Mail. “we’ll leave a card informing you that we called. Just pop round our depot and collect it at your convenience.” To facilitate this process they’ve made the opening times of the collection office a very convenient 7am - 12pm. Wonderful!
What world are these people living in? Slap me with a damp cauliflower if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that most of us are already facing the daily rat race by 7am. Yours truly will have already been at the sharp end for a good couple of hours. By the time we are able to steal a lunch break, the buggers have shut up shop and gone home! That is assuming the collection depot is close enough at hand to nip out to in the first place. In any case they need at least 24 hours to return items to the depot, which is barely two miles away. This means you cannot collect your cherished post until the next day at the earliest. In my case I have to wait for a day off, which could be anything up to six days. So much for guaranteed next day delivery.
In our 24/7, world that never sleeps, is it really too much to ask that Royal Mail set opening hours convenient to the customer, rather than the postal worker who fancies an afternoon off?
Sunday 9 May 2010
What's In a Name? - Part Two
So we have established the principle that our names should be used properly unless we give express permission to do otherwise. This leads me on to the question of when it is appropriate to use that name at all.
When I am not at the keyboard sharing my thoughts with you dear reader, I indulge in what is popularly known as a “real job”. That is to say, a pointless, unrewarding pursuit which occupies some eight to nine hours of every day, distracting me from my true vocation, whilst lining the pockets of the shareholders of a large Dutch multinational. This so-called work also enables the Chancellor of the Exchequer to rob me of a significant proportion of my income with impunity. But we will leave the issues of taxes and the exploitation of labour for another day, suffice to say that for the moment my current “career” subsidises my real job, which is writing.
However, I digress. The company for whom I prostitute my labours have a strict policy of insisting that its employees all wear shiny little badges with our names on. This, it is believed, makes us more approachable to customers. More accurately it is a weapon for an ever more irascible and demanding public to beat the poor unsuspecting employee with.
Contrary to popular misconception, most customer facing staff do their utmost to be courteous and helpful to the great unwashed. They may curse them behind their backs, but face to face there is always a genuine attempt at being helpful. The name badge could therefore be used to offer congratulations to a diligent soul for a job well done or simply to offer thanks for going beyond the call of duty in helping an ungrateful hooligan. How often do you think this occurs dear friend? The answer would be a big fat zero! Nix, nada, zilch, the big goose egg. It never happens.
Instead the name badge is used by the public to castigate employees whom it is felt have not been sufficiently deferential or in some other way not lived up to the massively over inflated level of expectation demanded in these modern times. Every little thing that goes wrong in the day to day running of the business is the direct result of incompetence on the part of the man or woman who serves as its public face. If they do not immediately have to hand the answers to Joe Public's most obscure enquiry, they are berated for being surly and unhelpful. If a train passenger arrives two minutes after the train has left, that is the fault of the platform staff. If a Conductor asks a Mother to fold up her pushchair on a crowded commuter train, he is deemed to be acting unreasonably, and that Mother will exercise her right to complain.
The company goes so far as to provide telephone helplines and actively encourages the public to report those who do not tug at their forelocks sufficiently hard – or to put in corporate speak “live up to our high levels of customer service.” In everyday parlance it means you have not shoved your tongue sufficiently far up their fat greasy backsides.
This, it is claimed, makes the company accountable. The most outrageous, bile filled lies are reported about staff by ordinary members of the public for the tiniest of infractions. A polite request for a customer to move their inconveniently dumped personal belongings can result in a venomous tirade of verbal abuse, and the hapless employee being hauled in front of management for a dressing down. And the complaint, however spurious, is lent weight because the complainant has a name to attach to it. It is almost as if they go home and think to themselves “That fecker asked me to move my shopping so a child in a wheelchair could get past!! I'm going to see to it that he loses his job.”
If they are not complaining, then they are over familiar and condescending, using your name at every opportunity. They see your name on a badge and assume that it gives them a divine right to address you by your first name. Whoop-di-doo, they can read! You want to grab them by the scruff of the neck and bellow into their patronising faces, “Yes that's my name! Don't wear it out!”. Call me a reactionary old fart, but I find it highly discourteous. I was brought up in a country and era where people still believed that you do not use a persons first name unless you have been introduced and that person has invited you to do so. Otherwise it is Mister, Missus, Sir, Madam what-have-you.
You are probably thinking, “How quaint”, or perhaps more likely, “what a feckin' tosspot, this guy actually actually believes in good manners and old fashioned etiquette.” And yes I do, make no bones about it. I do not just expect good manners, I demand them. I am the bloke who stands glaring at you as you bark your instructions at me. The officious little Hitler who won't respond until the magic word is spoken. Oh I may occasionally offer helpful hints along the lines of “PLEASE is the word you are looking for”, but more usually mine is the back you see moving away from you as you splutter and gulp like a beached goldfish.
I absolutely draw the line at children and snotty teenagers using my first name when I am at work. I simply will not tolerate it. Again, blame my hopelessly old fashioned upbringing, but where I come from children do not use an adults first name. Mum, Dad, Uncle, Auntie, Mr, Mrs, Sir, Madam are the only acceptable forms of address a child may use to an adult. Don't like it? Call the helpline.
The other day, as I dealt with a customer, I was approached by a pre-teen rabble all squawking and generally making everyone's life utter misery. I heard one of the little cretins say to one of his companions, “His name's David”. Well hallelujah, literacy has reached a point where brats can master five letter words.
Sadly it is not within my authority to simply ignore the little bastards, so I gritted my teeth and gave them what they asked for. As he handed over his money, the ringleader looked me in the eye and said “Thank you David”, with a smug grin of satisfaction on his chubby face. They others stood around sniggering. “Excuse me,” I replied, “Have we been introduced?” His stupid smile subsided somewhat. “Eh?” he grunted. I pressed home the advantage. “I asked you if we had been introduced, and the answer is no. So, until we have been, and you have grown out of short trousers you do not have the right to call me David. Do you understand me?” He nodded dumbly, clearly not having a clue why I was annoyed. “If you really must call me something, then it's Sir. Is that clear?”
I stalked away as the gang huddled together, an agitated buzz of profanity emanating from their midst. A elderly lady nearby gave me a tight lipped smile. I am not sure if it was a show of solidarity or an attempt to ward off my wrath.
We are told that we live in a classless society. We are told that using our first names emphasises our equality and mutual respect for each other. This is why cold callers and call-centre employees insist on trying to use your first names in every sentence. It is meant to be chummy, disarming, putting people at their ease. Sorry, but with me it promotes antagonism, embarrassment for the caller and a swift end to the conversation.
It is all bullshit of course. First names do not break down class barriers, they throw up artificial new ones. In decades past, the upper classes called the lower classes by their first names to emphasise their own superiority over the lower orders. Servants were John or Jane, whilst the masters were Sir or Madam. And this is precisely the relationship which modern society has created between Customer and Seller or Service Provider. A shop assistant is expected to call a customer Sir or Madam, whilst a customer gets to call that lackey by their name. It is designed to promote the notion that only money counts and that those who serve the public are inferior. This is why every Vicky Pollard up and down the country thinks that she is entitled to respect every time she pulls a wad of twenties out of her Burberry handbag. People who work in shops and on public transport are there to treated like servants, while spending power is lauded. It is a triumph of new affluence over age-old breeding.
When sales people use your first name, they are trying to get around your defences so they can flog you some pointless service that you do not want. When a customer uses an employees first name, they are trying to put that person in their place. As Sidney Poitier once said, call me Mister.
When I am not at the keyboard sharing my thoughts with you dear reader, I indulge in what is popularly known as a “real job”. That is to say, a pointless, unrewarding pursuit which occupies some eight to nine hours of every day, distracting me from my true vocation, whilst lining the pockets of the shareholders of a large Dutch multinational. This so-called work also enables the Chancellor of the Exchequer to rob me of a significant proportion of my income with impunity. But we will leave the issues of taxes and the exploitation of labour for another day, suffice to say that for the moment my current “career” subsidises my real job, which is writing.
However, I digress. The company for whom I prostitute my labours have a strict policy of insisting that its employees all wear shiny little badges with our names on. This, it is believed, makes us more approachable to customers. More accurately it is a weapon for an ever more irascible and demanding public to beat the poor unsuspecting employee with.
Contrary to popular misconception, most customer facing staff do their utmost to be courteous and helpful to the great unwashed. They may curse them behind their backs, but face to face there is always a genuine attempt at being helpful. The name badge could therefore be used to offer congratulations to a diligent soul for a job well done or simply to offer thanks for going beyond the call of duty in helping an ungrateful hooligan. How often do you think this occurs dear friend? The answer would be a big fat zero! Nix, nada, zilch, the big goose egg. It never happens.
Instead the name badge is used by the public to castigate employees whom it is felt have not been sufficiently deferential or in some other way not lived up to the massively over inflated level of expectation demanded in these modern times. Every little thing that goes wrong in the day to day running of the business is the direct result of incompetence on the part of the man or woman who serves as its public face. If they do not immediately have to hand the answers to Joe Public's most obscure enquiry, they are berated for being surly and unhelpful. If a train passenger arrives two minutes after the train has left, that is the fault of the platform staff. If a Conductor asks a Mother to fold up her pushchair on a crowded commuter train, he is deemed to be acting unreasonably, and that Mother will exercise her right to complain.
The company goes so far as to provide telephone helplines and actively encourages the public to report those who do not tug at their forelocks sufficiently hard – or to put in corporate speak “live up to our high levels of customer service.” In everyday parlance it means you have not shoved your tongue sufficiently far up their fat greasy backsides.
This, it is claimed, makes the company accountable. The most outrageous, bile filled lies are reported about staff by ordinary members of the public for the tiniest of infractions. A polite request for a customer to move their inconveniently dumped personal belongings can result in a venomous tirade of verbal abuse, and the hapless employee being hauled in front of management for a dressing down. And the complaint, however spurious, is lent weight because the complainant has a name to attach to it. It is almost as if they go home and think to themselves “That fecker asked me to move my shopping so a child in a wheelchair could get past!! I'm going to see to it that he loses his job.”
If they are not complaining, then they are over familiar and condescending, using your name at every opportunity. They see your name on a badge and assume that it gives them a divine right to address you by your first name. Whoop-di-doo, they can read! You want to grab them by the scruff of the neck and bellow into their patronising faces, “Yes that's my name! Don't wear it out!”. Call me a reactionary old fart, but I find it highly discourteous. I was brought up in a country and era where people still believed that you do not use a persons first name unless you have been introduced and that person has invited you to do so. Otherwise it is Mister, Missus, Sir, Madam what-have-you.
You are probably thinking, “How quaint”, or perhaps more likely, “what a feckin' tosspot, this guy actually actually believes in good manners and old fashioned etiquette.” And yes I do, make no bones about it. I do not just expect good manners, I demand them. I am the bloke who stands glaring at you as you bark your instructions at me. The officious little Hitler who won't respond until the magic word is spoken. Oh I may occasionally offer helpful hints along the lines of “PLEASE is the word you are looking for”, but more usually mine is the back you see moving away from you as you splutter and gulp like a beached goldfish.
I absolutely draw the line at children and snotty teenagers using my first name when I am at work. I simply will not tolerate it. Again, blame my hopelessly old fashioned upbringing, but where I come from children do not use an adults first name. Mum, Dad, Uncle, Auntie, Mr, Mrs, Sir, Madam are the only acceptable forms of address a child may use to an adult. Don't like it? Call the helpline.
The other day, as I dealt with a customer, I was approached by a pre-teen rabble all squawking and generally making everyone's life utter misery. I heard one of the little cretins say to one of his companions, “His name's David”. Well hallelujah, literacy has reached a point where brats can master five letter words.
Sadly it is not within my authority to simply ignore the little bastards, so I gritted my teeth and gave them what they asked for. As he handed over his money, the ringleader looked me in the eye and said “Thank you David”, with a smug grin of satisfaction on his chubby face. They others stood around sniggering. “Excuse me,” I replied, “Have we been introduced?” His stupid smile subsided somewhat. “Eh?” he grunted. I pressed home the advantage. “I asked you if we had been introduced, and the answer is no. So, until we have been, and you have grown out of short trousers you do not have the right to call me David. Do you understand me?” He nodded dumbly, clearly not having a clue why I was annoyed. “If you really must call me something, then it's Sir. Is that clear?”
I stalked away as the gang huddled together, an agitated buzz of profanity emanating from their midst. A elderly lady nearby gave me a tight lipped smile. I am not sure if it was a show of solidarity or an attempt to ward off my wrath.
We are told that we live in a classless society. We are told that using our first names emphasises our equality and mutual respect for each other. This is why cold callers and call-centre employees insist on trying to use your first names in every sentence. It is meant to be chummy, disarming, putting people at their ease. Sorry, but with me it promotes antagonism, embarrassment for the caller and a swift end to the conversation.
It is all bullshit of course. First names do not break down class barriers, they throw up artificial new ones. In decades past, the upper classes called the lower classes by their first names to emphasise their own superiority over the lower orders. Servants were John or Jane, whilst the masters were Sir or Madam. And this is precisely the relationship which modern society has created between Customer and Seller or Service Provider. A shop assistant is expected to call a customer Sir or Madam, whilst a customer gets to call that lackey by their name. It is designed to promote the notion that only money counts and that those who serve the public are inferior. This is why every Vicky Pollard up and down the country thinks that she is entitled to respect every time she pulls a wad of twenties out of her Burberry handbag. People who work in shops and on public transport are there to treated like servants, while spending power is lauded. It is a triumph of new affluence over age-old breeding.
When sales people use your first name, they are trying to get around your defences so they can flog you some pointless service that you do not want. When a customer uses an employees first name, they are trying to put that person in their place. As Sidney Poitier once said, call me Mister.
Sunday 2 May 2010
What's In a Name? - Part One
We all have one. It is who we are. Our names say much about our backgrounds, our self-image, our aspirations and the pretension of our parents. To most people, our name is pretty important, even if we don't realise it. Our names are our public face and determine the way society sees and reacts to us. Just take a moment to consider the different images that names conjure in your mind – William, George, Jack, Tyler, Wayne, Emily, Charlotte, Sharon, Alopecia? We have a range of contrasting preconceived notions of a child depending on whether he is a James, a Jamie or a Jimmy. You know instinctively that you are talking to a chav if they are called Liam, Kyle, Tiffany or Chardonnay. You know without needing to ask, that they own a pitbull terrier called Tyson.
Throughout my childhood, right up until my mid twenties I was known as Dave. I didn't choose to be known as Dave, any more than I chose to be christened David. I didn't object to it, indeed I was quite happy with it. The only time I was ever called David was when I was in trouble with my Mother. Once I reached my teens Dave seemed more cool. My adolescent hero was Dave Mustaine, frontman of seminal thrash metal band Megadeth. Dave was the archetypal angry rock 'n' roll rebel. The one who got the girls, the one with the good hair and sexy guitars. The one people wanted to emulate. His long suffering sidekick David Ellefson may have been equally wild away from the public eye but his public persona was always that of the quiet, steady one who stayed in the background. The one who didn't give many interviews and didn't have sexy hair. Dave was the exciting one, David the ever so slightly dull one. In short, it was much better to be Dave than David.
Unfortunately I was born in a year when every parent up and down the land decided that David was a good name to bestow upon their sons. I couldn't begin to count the number of my peers who were called Dave, and to be honest it bugged me. I never considered going by any other name, but I did experiment with changing the spelling of my surname and by inventing wild rock 'n' roll middle names. For some reason it didn't occur to me that I could distinguish myself from the herd by simply calling myself David. Part of the problem was that I was painfully shy right up until my twenties. I wanted to stand out from the crowd, but I was too afraid. Friends and family would instinctively call me Dave rather than David – perhaps because it trips off the tongue easier for most people. I never bothered to correct them, mainly because it came as a welcome relief from the horrendous nicknames I suffered from the bullies at school. Yes I suffered a lot of bullying at school. Explains a lot doesn't it?
I can clearly remember the day I decided that I would become David. The day when I would become a leader rather than a sheep, and demand the respect I am due. I was at a Conservative Party meeting about fourteen years ago, being introduced to a senior regional official when the local chairman asked me if I preferred Dave, David or Davey. Without hesitation I said David. It was so obvious and natural. It sounded more professional, more serious, more educated and more in keeping with the image I wanted to project. Who ever heard of a Prime Minister called Dave? I made the decision that the only people who would be allowed to continue calling me Dave were my closest family and a tiny circle of close friends, who had always known me by that name. It would become a mark of the intimacy I felt with those people. That is the way it has been ever since.
Not much to get angry about so far, is there? Apart from the bullying. Well in fact there is, because there is a certain element in society who seem incapable of calling people by their proper names. If I introduce myself as David then I expect to be called David and not Dave or worse Davey. Just as someone who introduces themselves as James does not expect to be called Michael or Steve. So why do people do it? It's discourteous and rude, and just plain lazy. They are effectively saying, “I can't be bothered to remember or use your proper name” and is therefore a measure of their lack of respect. They might as well call you thingy or wossisname. It displays the ignorance and utter lack of breeding of the speaker.
I worked for a financial institution for almost five years. A nightmare world of artificial pressure, self-aggrandisement, backstabbing and lack of ambition. A world where the dull and incompetent massage their tiny egos with a pretence of professionalism and importance. Let us be clear, there is nothing more worthless and less important in society than a group of bankers.
However, it is the one profession where people are guaranteed to use your correct name. A commitment to “professionalism” and political correctness means no one would dare call you by anything other than the name you introduce yourself by. It's also compulsory to use a persons surname when mentioning a colleague. So you always refer to Jack Jones rather than simply Jack. This rule applies regardless of how unique or unusual a persons name might be. So you would say Rumpilstiltskin Smith, to differentiate that person from all the other Rumpilstiltskins in the office. Maybe it's because the PC brigade live in terror of being sued for lack of professionalism. Maybe it's simply because they are all a bunch of bankers.
Contrast this with my next job, with a regional transport provider. A former nationalised industry where the trade unions still rule supreme and attitudes have not moved on since the seventies. A workplace founded on antagonism between “the workers” and management, where casual racism, sexism and homophobia are an accepted fact of life. Professionalism, tolerance and common courtesy are considered political correctness gone mad.
It's also an industry where staff seem pathologically incapable of using someone's correct name. There are no Williams, Michaels, James' or Davids here. No matter what you were named at birth, you can expect to have it it shortened and a Y added at the end. So we have a plethora of Billys, Mickeys, Tommys, Jimmys and Daveys. It is unrelentingly proletarian and it makes me squirm.
For the first few weeks I was plagued with people calling me Davey. Now let me be utterly clear on this point. I loathe being called Davey with a passion. The only thing worse is being called Davey Boy. It is thoroughly working class to be known as Davey. It is a name which sums up everything in life which I disdain – lack of education, lack of ambition and lack of class.
I began by correcting my colleagues. “Actually, it's David” I would say. “Ooh la de dah” would be the inevitable reply. I would explain that I preferred to be known as David, plain and simple and that I would not respond to anyone calling me Davey. Therefore I would appreciate it if they respected my wishes. “Wotsamatter with Davey?” would be the puzzled reply, to which I would have to give the honest answer that I found it both common and beneath my dignity. I am very big on truth and honesty.
This kind of answer does not compute with your average railway worker. “Are you a f#@king poof?” is fairly typical of the responses I received. Now I believe in rubbing along with my colleagues and treating people with equal respect and I expect the same in response. I certainly do not expect people to deliberately ignore my wishes. Naturally things came to a head. There were about half a dozen of us in the Supervisors office one afternoon when I corrected someone for calling me Davey. Naturally this resulted in much hilarity and comments along the lines already described. I must have been having a difficult day because I decided to abandon all pretence at professionalism and opted to speak to the blue collar Neanderthals in their own language. “Listen,” I said “I will only say this once. If any of you ignorant f#@kwits calls me Davey again, I will rip your bollocks out through your throat and shove them back up your a#@ehole. Ok?” Well you could have heard the jaws crashing onto the floor. I must explain that I would normally find profanity in the workplace to be abhorrent, but naked aggression is the only language some people understand. One or two people have still not managed to stop calling me Dave, but no one calls me Davey any more.
Throughout my childhood, right up until my mid twenties I was known as Dave. I didn't choose to be known as Dave, any more than I chose to be christened David. I didn't object to it, indeed I was quite happy with it. The only time I was ever called David was when I was in trouble with my Mother. Once I reached my teens Dave seemed more cool. My adolescent hero was Dave Mustaine, frontman of seminal thrash metal band Megadeth. Dave was the archetypal angry rock 'n' roll rebel. The one who got the girls, the one with the good hair and sexy guitars. The one people wanted to emulate. His long suffering sidekick David Ellefson may have been equally wild away from the public eye but his public persona was always that of the quiet, steady one who stayed in the background. The one who didn't give many interviews and didn't have sexy hair. Dave was the exciting one, David the ever so slightly dull one. In short, it was much better to be Dave than David.
Unfortunately I was born in a year when every parent up and down the land decided that David was a good name to bestow upon their sons. I couldn't begin to count the number of my peers who were called Dave, and to be honest it bugged me. I never considered going by any other name, but I did experiment with changing the spelling of my surname and by inventing wild rock 'n' roll middle names. For some reason it didn't occur to me that I could distinguish myself from the herd by simply calling myself David. Part of the problem was that I was painfully shy right up until my twenties. I wanted to stand out from the crowd, but I was too afraid. Friends and family would instinctively call me Dave rather than David – perhaps because it trips off the tongue easier for most people. I never bothered to correct them, mainly because it came as a welcome relief from the horrendous nicknames I suffered from the bullies at school. Yes I suffered a lot of bullying at school. Explains a lot doesn't it?
I can clearly remember the day I decided that I would become David. The day when I would become a leader rather than a sheep, and demand the respect I am due. I was at a Conservative Party meeting about fourteen years ago, being introduced to a senior regional official when the local chairman asked me if I preferred Dave, David or Davey. Without hesitation I said David. It was so obvious and natural. It sounded more professional, more serious, more educated and more in keeping with the image I wanted to project. Who ever heard of a Prime Minister called Dave? I made the decision that the only people who would be allowed to continue calling me Dave were my closest family and a tiny circle of close friends, who had always known me by that name. It would become a mark of the intimacy I felt with those people. That is the way it has been ever since.
Not much to get angry about so far, is there? Apart from the bullying. Well in fact there is, because there is a certain element in society who seem incapable of calling people by their proper names. If I introduce myself as David then I expect to be called David and not Dave or worse Davey. Just as someone who introduces themselves as James does not expect to be called Michael or Steve. So why do people do it? It's discourteous and rude, and just plain lazy. They are effectively saying, “I can't be bothered to remember or use your proper name” and is therefore a measure of their lack of respect. They might as well call you thingy or wossisname. It displays the ignorance and utter lack of breeding of the speaker.
I worked for a financial institution for almost five years. A nightmare world of artificial pressure, self-aggrandisement, backstabbing and lack of ambition. A world where the dull and incompetent massage their tiny egos with a pretence of professionalism and importance. Let us be clear, there is nothing more worthless and less important in society than a group of bankers.
However, it is the one profession where people are guaranteed to use your correct name. A commitment to “professionalism” and political correctness means no one would dare call you by anything other than the name you introduce yourself by. It's also compulsory to use a persons surname when mentioning a colleague. So you always refer to Jack Jones rather than simply Jack. This rule applies regardless of how unique or unusual a persons name might be. So you would say Rumpilstiltskin Smith, to differentiate that person from all the other Rumpilstiltskins in the office. Maybe it's because the PC brigade live in terror of being sued for lack of professionalism. Maybe it's simply because they are all a bunch of bankers.
Contrast this with my next job, with a regional transport provider. A former nationalised industry where the trade unions still rule supreme and attitudes have not moved on since the seventies. A workplace founded on antagonism between “the workers” and management, where casual racism, sexism and homophobia are an accepted fact of life. Professionalism, tolerance and common courtesy are considered political correctness gone mad.
It's also an industry where staff seem pathologically incapable of using someone's correct name. There are no Williams, Michaels, James' or Davids here. No matter what you were named at birth, you can expect to have it it shortened and a Y added at the end. So we have a plethora of Billys, Mickeys, Tommys, Jimmys and Daveys. It is unrelentingly proletarian and it makes me squirm.
For the first few weeks I was plagued with people calling me Davey. Now let me be utterly clear on this point. I loathe being called Davey with a passion. The only thing worse is being called Davey Boy. It is thoroughly working class to be known as Davey. It is a name which sums up everything in life which I disdain – lack of education, lack of ambition and lack of class.
I began by correcting my colleagues. “Actually, it's David” I would say. “Ooh la de dah” would be the inevitable reply. I would explain that I preferred to be known as David, plain and simple and that I would not respond to anyone calling me Davey. Therefore I would appreciate it if they respected my wishes. “Wotsamatter with Davey?” would be the puzzled reply, to which I would have to give the honest answer that I found it both common and beneath my dignity. I am very big on truth and honesty.
This kind of answer does not compute with your average railway worker. “Are you a f#@king poof?” is fairly typical of the responses I received. Now I believe in rubbing along with my colleagues and treating people with equal respect and I expect the same in response. I certainly do not expect people to deliberately ignore my wishes. Naturally things came to a head. There were about half a dozen of us in the Supervisors office one afternoon when I corrected someone for calling me Davey. Naturally this resulted in much hilarity and comments along the lines already described. I must have been having a difficult day because I decided to abandon all pretence at professionalism and opted to speak to the blue collar Neanderthals in their own language. “Listen,” I said “I will only say this once. If any of you ignorant f#@kwits calls me Davey again, I will rip your bollocks out through your throat and shove them back up your a#@ehole. Ok?” Well you could have heard the jaws crashing onto the floor. I must explain that I would normally find profanity in the workplace to be abhorrent, but naked aggression is the only language some people understand. One or two people have still not managed to stop calling me Dave, but no one calls me Davey any more.
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