Be Excellent To Each Other

Regardless, Mr. Chris has a duty to not pass on any opportunity to create a Samuel L.

Samuel's my favourite, too. Closely followed by Wesley. As he *would* then be follow a career as the Dread Pirate Roberts. Which would be unutterably ace.

Mrs Chris likes "Gilbert". This is because she likes "Bertie" but doesn't (for some unfathomable, possibly hormone-related, reason) like "Bertram". Which is clearly the Name of Champions, what? A chap with a name like that is clearly a Chap, indeed.

However, I think I need to prime Mrs C for a "Richard Gaywood" in the family. That or ignore that result...

How dare you ignore the result? This is the internet, dammit!

Bertie is usually short for Albert, which is also up there, so you should find out of Mrs Chris likes Albert.

She likes Albert too.

I'm... not so keen.

No?

(Enter obvious 'Prince Albert' gag here)

Jake, you bastard, JAKE.

"Who's that successful guy over there with the fit totty and expensive car? Why, it's Jake Lewis, the man with the incredible talent almost entirely by virtue of his name".

Bertram Lewis will end up being a beardy tramp. You know it.

Whatever, dick.

I hereby treble vote for Bertram in the light of this discovery.

A moderately inventive child can come up with a pisstake of *any* name, so as long as we avoid the completely easy ones (tarquin, sebastian, knobface etc), he'll be no worse off than anyone else.

Yep. Mr. Piss is absolutely correct

Has it been birthed yet? Hurry up and sqeeuze it out (not you, her) so you can name it Jake/Richard Gaywood.

Jake Richard Gaywood Lewis is starting to sound pretty good. With a name like that, you could get him into Eton.

A Gaywood at a public school is just asking for trouble...

Mission From God-FTFY.

The problem is, you think naming him Wesley will make him the Dread Pirate Roberts, but actually it'll mean a lifetime of attending Star Trek conventions wondering where his career went.

"Call him Wesley"

Actually, I think the name in the book/film is 'Westley', with a 't' in it...

...Yup

I think I prefer Westley, actually.

Problem with that is no-one will ever spell it right on a mobile contract, job letter or mortgage ever.

What, just because his name began with a 'W'? What kind of hellish school did you go to? At least if they took the mickey out of your name at my school it was because you had a stupid name*, not because it just happened to start with any letter.

*Actually, this wasn't true. Despite knowing someone called 'David Cockburn' at my school, not even that got taken the mickey out of, nor did Shital, or Fuckunda. Oh, I also had two teachers called Barnabus Ross and Nigel Fudge, which are names I love.

Oh, please tell me Fuckunda was a real name of someone you knew and not something you just made up.

Fuckunda was the sister of my friend Haji, it was her real name. I am sure it had an 'a' on the end, rather than an 'er'.

That's...amazing.

Was she named before she lived in this country? Or were here parents just unaware/uncaring?

Hmmm. I am not sure, but I think that Haji was born over here, my friend went to nursery with him, either way, and his sister was a few years younger than him, so I think she may have been born in the UK. She never really minded her name, it just never seemed an issue - my school was so full of different names it just wasn't something that got taken the mickey out of - no-one's name was 'normal'. I think the only person who ever felt anything about the name was Haji, who jokingly used to call her 'George'.

It's odd, because I also went to schools that had a quite large multi-ethnic population, and as kids we saw nothing wrong with it at all...someone told us that was their name and we accepted it, as you do at that age.

Other people I know went to schools deep in the heart of "White countryside" with nary a coloured person to be seen...these are the ones that immediately think "foreign looking" people don't "come from here".

I recently took one of these people in to our local Chinese Takeway, staffed by the most friendly Chinese guy...my friend went to order and the Chinese guy said "Hello mate, what can I getcha" - he's lived in this town all his life.

My friend was so taken aback by the seemingly impossible voice coming from a Chinese looking guy, he stopped for a second before ordering, and had an embrassingly quizzical look on his face.

The same with a Pakistani fellow who runs a little newsagents near me, his shop is stereotypically Pakistani Newsagents...small, cramped, a little random placement on shelves...but the guy gives the best service in the town, always chats to his customers, helps the kids find what they want before they go to school...another guy who's been here all his life but has prejudice against him from people "who won't go to that Paki shop".

I guess you being exposed to these things at a young age, Mimi, shaped you in to the wonderfully tolerant and sensitive person you are now, rather than the old biddy who obviously thought you "looked a bit foreign" earlier on in the thread.

At least you'll be the one having better service, experiances, and friendships, though, eh?

*end ramble*

Aye. I've been pretty disgusted by the level of pathetic racism I've seen since moving from London. I'm not totally naive, but I really thought I'd have to go to somewhere more remote than warwick to come across people who automatically and disliked anyone with a foreign accent, and called people "coloured" at the slightest provocation. Once Chinese guy (possibly the only one in town) mispronounces a word, and forevermore, the person who heard him speak will be telling their friends "THEY COME INTO MY SHOP AND CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH". Or a perfectly polite German bloke asks someone a reasonable question and wanders off, and that person makes a shitty snide remark as they leave about "who won the war". It's embarassing. Your parents weren't even alive during the war, fuckpipe.

It's really weird never seeing any black and hardly any asian people in town, too. I can't even remember the last time I heard a sexy accent.

Ahem. Anyway.

Whenever I go back to the town I grew up in, I'm instantly shocked about how white it is. Whilst there I'm also a bit on edge about being abused due to my looks rather than in Manchester. (ie long hair, I'm not some dirty darkie, natch). Small town-ism is shit.

Thankfully not all small towns suffer from small town-ism, though. Weird, but true.

Yeah, although, people can be incredibly racist in local chavpub at times, but not if they know the person in question, if you see what i mean.

But it looks like I'll be moving away soon, if the emails from Mrs A dropping into my inbox are anything to go by....

Is that like he casual racists that don't like black people unless they are genius footballers for their own team?

And if they ain't taking any jobs.

I very rarely see any non-white people up here. I've probably only managed to have a conversation with fewer than I have fingers, in my entire life. Going into the bigger cities is a massive change - I'm just not used to seeing so much diversity. It's quite a shock.

But, I've never really felt like non-whites aren't welcome here. There has never been any negativity towards them, from what I've seen. I'm sure there are massively racist people, but I just haven't been exposed to them.

Enoch

Hitler

Benito

Similar to nynfortoo. I grew up in a piddly town in North Wales where anyone non-white was a bit of an event. There were perhaps two or three non-white people in my school of 1000 pupils. There was never any particular racism, nobody ever really thought about it really. Moving to Manchester was definitely a bit of a perception shift, and if you were more ignorant you could be almost forgiven for having a bad perception of asians - there are some really bad elements of Rushholme. One of my (white) mates was once told to 'Get out of my country, whiteboy', during Eid. You just have to realise that arseholes come in every colour.

Eid does annoy me though, because its generally really loud and in your face. Main roads get blocked with people partying, noise levels are through the roof, and the police don't do anything about it because it's a religious thing and they're paranoid about being seen to be discriminatory. You wouldn't get away with similar behavior during Christmas. I can't help but feel this is wrong - if I went to a Muslim country I wouldn't presume to be partying my bollocks off on Christmas Day, and I'd be particularly concerned about offending the locals with my foreign customs.

I think this should work both ways really, you have to abide by the status quo of wherever you've chosen to move, and you can't assume that people will bend over backwards to accommodate you just because your home country does it differently. I shudder to think of the perception most foreign countries have of the UK, as I'd certainly think we're a load of hooting alcoholics who compensate for their lack of foreign language skills by merely shouting in English all the louder.

What was I saying? Yes, go with Jake. Jake is an ACE name.

Of course, if that means they're on benefits, then they're stealing our money by being lazy and workshy.

Those pesky rotters!

And our wimmin!

(someone actually said that to my brother-in-law when we were all out to dinner, once. (My brother-in-law is Ghanian, so he was speaking directly about and to him, rather than just shouting random racist spiel directed at no-one). Edward just stood up, smiled, and said 'Ok, I think it's time for you to go home'. Random racist man said 'you sir, are a gentlemen. You take that woman, then.' and wandered off out of the restaurant.

Edward said that was the only time anyone had said anything remotely racist to him, but he was too busy laughing to get too upset about it.

Anyway:

Westley.

Oh, yeah, I remember, but I wasn't proper angry.

I was walking to work and there was a delivery van on one side of the road, with a car facing it, then the car pulled up alongside the delivery van and a brief argument ensued. It ended with the car driver saying 'Get back in the banana tree' at the delivery driver and the driver laughing. I thought I'd help the situation my shouting through the car window, over the angry racist mans wife to 'Fuck off back up to Lancashire, you flat cap wearing whippet shagger' and sauntered on.