A Rose by any other name...

...Would still prick you with its thorns.
(C) Joseph M. Monks 1989.

So, what's in a name Eh?

It's how you're known to the world at large isn't it? Your given name, the one your parents give you after you're born, the one you put on job applications, can be a bit of an albatross around your neck can't it? Especially if your parents don't really think far enough ahead.

I'm sure that there are hundreds of Richard Heads in the world and any number of Josephine Kings.  Hugot Jarses are hiding under every rug and Peter Files are skulking behind every twitching curtain.

Of course, being of the male persuasion (ostensibly at least) I don't have to suffer the indignity of having a new surname foist upon me when I marry (Unless someone suggests that hateful double-barreled shenanigens, and quite frankly, I wouldn't stand for it - Unless my Surname was Baycun and my bride-to-be's was Moore, then of course I'd insist upon it, as any right thinking Englishman would).  So miss Mabel Hoskins should never get entwined with Benjamin Cable for instance.  In fact, I have a good friend who managed to saddle his wife with a married name that I consider her a saint for managing to bear on a daily basis.  If you have read the James Josiah Flash Project (and if not, why not?) You may be aware of the occasional literary outpourings of a certain Mr Nathan Spong... He married a wonderful young lady whose first name just happened to be Victoria... Told you, she's a saint...

Then we have Nicknames, often given to us at school, often cruel and often stickier than a hot octopus made of glue flavoured toffee.

Now, I was quite lucky at school, my surname is one of those that lends itself easily to just having a 'Y' stuck on the end of it, in a sort of 'Smithy' or 'Jonesy' Stylee.  And, as kids are mostly lazy, I was called that for a number of years.  Then someone replaced the 'sey' with a 'bo' so I became 'Grimbo' for a time, which always struck me as a little derogatory for some reason... One of my more well-read chums had a go at changing it to 'Grimer Wormtongue', but thankfully, he wasn't particularly successful.  My school life wasn't great...

Is it any wonder that some of us give ourselves alternative names?  You might be suprised to find out that The Chimping Dandy is not what it says on my Birth Certificate (It say Alphonse McTavish Shandytrousers-Humpleton-Grainger for those who are interested, in red marker-pen, diagonally).  A lot of people have an alternative personality for the time they spend on the Internet (weirdos like us lot mostly) They can be used to advertise your aspirations, to hide your Internet mumblings from people who know you in real life, or just so that you can pretend to be someone you're not with more money, a better career, or more interestingly dimensioned genitalia.

This is not my first Nom-de-Net you know... For an awfully long time I was a chap called LowLevel, posting on various message boards and online games.  Believe it or not, even my nickname got a nickname.  I had a number of young ladies who called me 'Ellie' (and this was a long time before the whole Anakin Skywalker / Annie debacle) And a nice Spanish lady used to refer to me as 'Lowlevelito'

I got that particular name from an old Army Buddy, who commented once about me sitting in the corner at a party, quietly listening to everything going on, he accused me of 'Low-Level intelligence gathering', and it just sort of stuck.

Then, when I worked for a popular (but again, sadly defunct) Childrens' clothing retailer, I got nicknamed 'Vet' because I'd been doing the job a while, wore a manky combat jacket a large proportion of the time and used to sit in the office sharpening a buck-knife with my tongue and claiming to all and sundry that 'I ain't got time to bleed.'

There was also one girl at a place I worked at a REALLY long time ago that called me 'Master' but that wasn't strictly a work nickname... *cough*

Anywho, picking yourself a new name is an important business - It needs to say things about you, let people know what they're getting, give a feeling of the type of interaction people they can expect...

Therefore I've decided that the pen-name that I'm going to use for my upcoming book is...

Wait for it...

Mr. Kyle D'Thrust...

You know what you're getting from a man with the name Mr. Kyle D'Thrust...

Well, in fairness - I wasn't hungry

OK. It's Friday and we're all (well, those of us in the UK at least) bracing ourselves for the chaos that a flash blizzard containing a whole 3" of snow will bring to us this afternoon.

Roads will close, electricity lines will be brought down, ice-cream sales will drop by 5%, lions will lie down with lambs, and most importantly, brie and pate will be slightly more difficult to cut.

But I don't 'do' weather reports on this Blog, I try not to cover the standard, the usual and the mainstream - That's what Facebook's for. So I intend to perform a handbrake volte-face, whilst everyone is shivering in their caves, hiding from the winter's frozen bite, I will complete the story that I started yesterday, and tell you snippets of the sweatiest night of my life.

-oOo-

As was covered fully in yesterday's post, the Memsahib and myself had found ourselves inveigled into a group of towering transvestites, en-route to one of Europe's premiere parties for the momumentally uninhibited. I had just become Western Europe's newest Gay Icon and the night was still young.

We wandered from the pub, which was virtually next-door to the venue, The Hammersmith Palais (Sadly, no longer with us) and joined the queue of deviants. I remarked to Patrick-Mary, or possibly Brian-Fifi that there were a number of people there who weren't exactly 'dressed for the occasion', he smiled and knodded, as if to a child who had just asked why the sky was blue, and replied,

'Ah, a lot of the more hardcore types can't, or won't, really wear their gear out in the real world, there are changing rooms inside,'

I pondered on this for a while, I was still a little bit vanilla at the time, but thought it was odd that these people would be embarrassed about, well, anything really. We reached the front of the queue in short order and after being given a quick look up and down by the security staff and a read of about a thousand signs that explained what would happen to you if you were found taking pictures without a press-pass, we entered the hall proper.

What would be the best way to describe the scene? Have you seen Blade 2? There's a party scene in that film that is about the closest to my first impression of that room. Except that there was slightly less gunfire and the attendees of this party were significantly cooler, to the point of being, well, not exactly indescribable - Because there wouldn't be much point in me trying to describe them I guess, but they were certainly 'unusual'.

I'll describe a few of the more memorable guests:

I'm not sure how many of you are conversant with the work of Thomas Gainsborough, the 18th Century painter? But there was a couple there dressed in costumes inspired by his work. However, instead of being made of richly coloured silks and velvets, they were made of PVC, with a giant, yellow and black, houndstooth check pattern, and they were full coverage... As in they were wearing gloves and Luchador style (gimp) masks (with hats on top). I later found out that these were one-piece costumes with a long, single zip up the back from... Erm... crotch to top of the head - Please don't ask me how I found this out...

There was a young lady with an incredible powder blue crinoline shepherdess costume, also made of PVC, complete with white PVC underskirts - Odd you'd think, but not out of the ordinary, you might even just get away with it at a normal fancy dress party. She did have a lamb with her too... Well, I say a lamb, it was actually a hairy gentleman, on his hands and knees, being led around on a collar and lead... He wasn't the only one of these, but he was one of the few wearing pants.

An unusual gentleman, who seemed to have a very particular, I hesitate to use the word fetish, but I probably should. He was wearing a suit made of what I would describe as 'dummy' rubber - That thick, yellow tinged clear rubber that baby's dummy are made of... It had no seperate arms, these were constricted by his sides, and his legs were similarly constrained (I think, although I may be wrong - I remember wondering whether he'd been placed there by a friend or he'd shrugged his way there like 'The Very Perverted Catterpillar'). He spent the entire night lying in the doorway of the Ladies Conveniences, occasionally thanking the people who took the time to tread on him, with stilletos. And you'll notice I said people, not ladies, as both the wearers of the footwear, and the gender of toilet user were fairly mix and match.

The last people who particularly stick in my mind were a very accomodating couple... We went to have a sit down, after and hour or so of being bombarded with Dutch Techno music and performers taking angle-grinders to their codpieces and found a seat opposite them. The young lady was sturdily built and topless. I will not even try to estimate her cupsize, but I'm fairly sure it was at the end of the alphabet where the high-scoring scrabble tiles live. She was providing a service for her boyfriend, normally reserved for hungry new-born babies and for some reason frowned upon in train carriages.

Once he'd had his fill, as it were, he stood up, thanked the young lady, shook the hand of the almost skeletal gentleman sat on the other side of her. (Which I thought was the most insanely British thing I had ever seen in my life) and walked off. It turns out that the skinny chap was her boyfriend and the gentleman with the brand new milk moo-stache was simply a fellow partygoer. He looked at me, rasied his eyebrows, and pointed at his partner. I shook my head, waved my hand in a negative fashion and patted my stomach - Immediately thinking that me not wanting to suckle from his girlfriend/wife because I wasn't hungry was probably not the reply that he was expecting.

We made our excuses and left.

The rest of the evening (Well, early hours of the morning to be exact) passed without many other major incidents, we bumped into our friends a few times, we were 'halloooed' and flashed from the balcony by our new-found transvestite horde, we talked to some people who I've since found out were 'famous' in that particular scene and through them, got invited to a couple of after-parties.

We didn't attend them unfortunately, the thought of getting a cab halfway across town, partying until lunchtime and then doing the walk of shame back to the hotel didn't sound that appealing - And I was pretty tired. But given the chance again... I'd be there like a shot, and you should too. And I now fully understand why a significant number of people there were virtually naked...

PVC's bloody hot to wear...