Thrush

In a local that I frequent there’s an older guy who drinks there regular. He’s always been the perfect gentleman to me. Polite and respectful. One day I asked another habitué what his name was. ‘Thrush is what we call him’ came the rapid reply. Chortling into my pint I asked ‘Why do you call him Thrush?’ Smiling he said ‘Because he’s an irritating cunt.’ I almost spilt my beer. Almost.

Nicknames are great. They’re kind of an expression of collective consciousness, humorous in this case. OK, somebody has the ‘original’ idea but it’s through use by others that it becomes funny. The nickname is an agreement between those that know the nicknamed. Not so much chosen as imposed. They can be revealing.

There’s this guy I’ll call Tim Stark. Lovely fellow. Do anything for you but has had some annoying habits. His first question, at the time, when he met a fellow joker and smoker was ‘Have you got any grass man?’ At the time Motherwell was having problems with their pitch. No grass at Fir Park. So that’s what he got called. Fir Park. He hated it as much as his mates loved it. But it fitted the moment.

Naming is an interesting process. In Holland, during the Spanish occupation, the population were forcefully subjected to censuses. The rural population didn’t really have fixed surnames, so they just made some up for the bossy Spanish. They wouldn’t know what they meant anyways. My favourite surname from that time is Koedooder. It translates as Cowdeader.

Or there was Jimmy Zero. He was a handicapped hawker but considered really unlucky by his fellow hawkers. Superstitious, if they saw him they believed they wouldn’t make any money that day. Hence Jimmy Zero. Poor sod. Or Barnacle Brown because he was hard to get rid of. The list is endless.

It’s still happening, nicknaming, but the internet is changing things. What kind of a name is Huggan57, for fucks sake? I prefer Dirty Don, but that was a long time ago.