What's in a name?

You might have seen in the papers or on 'This Morning' a while back, that horsey-looking posh woman who used to be on 'The Apprentice', spouting her nonsense about such subjects as fat people and kids with chavvy names. Katie Hopkins, that's the badger; with a posh name like that obviously she's more than qualified to pour scorn on the Kylie's and Charmaine's of this world (did the sarcasm come across ok?). What she basically said, in a judgmental nutshell, was that she wouldn't allow her own precious offspring play with school friends who had names which suggested a lower class (Tyler and Chardonnay were the examples she gave), and hated when parents called their children after celebrities, or place names... momentarily forgetting she'd named one of her own darlings 'India'.

Anyway. I won't be getting involved in the big name debate because - let's face it - I'm bound to offend someone. In the privacy of my own home I may cast a cursory snigger at the poor little buggers who have been cursed with being such names as 'Apple' (Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris thingy from 'Coldplay'), or 'Jermajesty' (son of Jermaine Jackson. Seriously. I know - it sounds like one of those words Nicole Scherzinger makes up..Schamazing!) Being the product of a celebrities loins makes it slightly more acceptable to have a daft name, because it doesn't make a difference to the opportunities that life opens up when your dad is a multi-millionaire rocker. But let's face it, you've got fluff-all chance of an interview if you're sending in CV's headed with the name MoonUnit Smith.

The reason behind all of my chattering is that (thanks to my stupid sprained ankle), I've been watching an awful lot of rubbish telly. And I realised that, in all of the soaps or 'reality' shows etc, does anybody share their name with another character. Obviously in Hollyoaks this is a given; it's unlikely you'd catch two people with the name 'Mitzeeee' living in the same street. But in Eastenders, Emmerdale, Corrie, I've struggled to find two characters with the same name. And I know that's probably because it would get a bit confusing for the script writers, but still - it's not very realistic.
I think about the kids at my daughters school and there's a good few groups of 3 or 4 that share names, because that is realistic. Two of my friends have husbands who share the same name and spelling of my other half - and he hasn't got a particularly common name.

But when it comes to names, while I think that nasty Hopkins woman is nowt but a snob (I mean, why would you punish a child for something their parent had done?), there is a point somewhere in her diatribe. Because who can deny that, when they were plumbing the depths of their minds and baby books for prospective names, they didn't skip past the ones that had memories of someone they'd known before? "Noooooo! I'm not calling him Simon*! There was a kid in Juniors called Simon who used to eat his ear wax!" (*names for illustrative purposes only). So names do have connotations for us, even if we don't take things as far as Horsey Hopkins. I've stuck with fairly sensible names for my two - The Daughter is named after my sister who died when we were young, and The BoyChild is named after my granddad. I might just throw all sense out of the window if we have a third though...any thoughts on Cheesecake Hague anyone??

Accidents happen...

One afternoon (about fifteen years ago actually), myself and some Uni friends were taking the rise out of one of our group who had broken his ankle playing basketball. After we'd exhausted the 'hopalong', 'clubfoot', 'clumsy tw@t' insults, I uttered the immortal words "I've never broken a bone before, I wonder what it feels like..?" (I know you know what's coming but don't ruin the punchline before I've told the joke!) Later that evening, I answered the communal phone in the halls of residence and the caller was the mum of my next door neighbour, who'd I'd just seen walking down the stairs. So I ran, full pelt, after her shouting. My shout quickly turned into a shriek as I fell from the top to the bottom, folding my leg firmly underneath me as I went. As I sat in a crumpled, sobbing heap in the stairwell, two things happened. Firstly, the girl whose mum was on the phone walked past me and laughed (Bloody laughed!!) and said "What are you doing down there?". I was in too much pain to say something clever like "Using my tears to wash the floor with my bum" so I just cried a bit more. And then, just to wind me a bit more, the aforementioned doofus who'd broken his ankle came over all Doc Marten and told me in no uncertain terms that mine wasn't broken.

As I returned from hospital many hours later, with a purple cast covering my two broken bones (TWO!! In your face basketball boy!!), I was in no doubt as to what a broken bone felt like. And the novelty wore off very early on in the eleven weeks I had to wear that I had to wear that cast for. Eleven weeks of wearing baggy sweatpants, of hobbling about with a humungous plastic shoe. And don't get me started on the weeks of having to build up my wizened old stick of a leg after the cast came off - it was like a knitting needle covered in dried skin and hair!

Of course, it was all downhill after the first break, having been jinxed by those haunting words. I then went on to break a finger decorating the kitchen (I knocked a clock off the wall, and in a save worthy of Peter Shilton, I grabbed the clock before it hit the ground. Smacking my finger on the doorframe in the process). And the hat-trick was breaking my middle knuckle chucking the cat out through the patio doors. I would rather go through childbirth than do that again, seriously.

I thought that after the three, my bone breaking days were done and behind me. And so yesterday - bank holiday Monday - as we joined the throngs of tourists at the Heights of Abraham in Matlock, it was just my luck that my ankle decided to spectacularly miss a step. My body did this crazy kind of fall flailing/grab something/nearly throw up from the pain thing. All in front of a beer garden of bikers. The kids had an exciting afternoon running round a hospital waiting room and were probably more excited about Mummy's "Skilts" (crutches) than they were about the cable cars and sightseeing.

My bones thankfully remain unbroken this time; my soft-tissue injury has been strapped up, elevated and regularly has painkillers directed at it. I have my Skilts to hop around on, and The Husband is doing his Husbandly duties - ringing me to tell me not to attempt the hoovering and helping me hobble to the loo. I have decided that it is just too risky for me to leave the house. If I venture out, it will be with a crash helmet and my limbs covered with bubble wrap   Heck, if I can break my hand painting and putting the cat out, it's probably safest if I just stay in bed!