Jennifer, Alison, Philippa, Sue

What's in a name? It's a question that I have been known to use before in introducing an article. I will probably use it again some time. Names have a power to fascinate. They reflect society and culture and they reflect personality and behaviour, or rather may well determine that behaviour, if, that is, you believe a study from a UK parents' group as reported on by Melanie McDonagh in "The Sunday Times", and I do believe it.

Teachers, it would seem, make an appraisal of children on the basis of their Christian names - before they have even met them. And more often than not, they are right. Broadly speaking, names determine whether the kids are naughty or well-behaved, weak or strong students. You can probably guess as to some of the names that are coming, many of them C-words. Chardonnay, Crystal, Chelsea - pity the poor girl monikered with the C-name or a boy who is a Kyle, Wayne or Brandon.

It is all so different. At my admittedly middle-class grammar school, there was nary an "alternative" name to be uttered by a disbelieving and despairing teacher, unless that name was foreign. In my class of five years, before we were spread across sixth-form categories, there was another Andrew, and there were Peters, a David, an Elizabeth, a Sally, an Anne. There was also an Andrzej, Andrew by any other name, but he was of Polish extraction and went on to become a cancer research expert at Imperial College. In my year, there were at least two "bad" boys - a Gary and a Terry (Gaz and Tel) - and a Sharon who even then lived up, or down, to the reputation of the name.

There is a fertile area of tourist research in all this. Which names go where? As the results would be bleeding obvious, there must be some body somewhere that is willing to fork out some thousands for a study. And I'm your man to do it. I can already give a clue. In Puerto Pollensa, all boys are called Alex, James or Tom, all girls are Emma, Lucy or Samantha. Along Alcúdia's Mile, by contrast, are the Kyles, Tylers and Waynes, the Britneys, Chardonnays and Kylies as well as those of either gender - a Casey, a Kelly or a Jordan.

The Spanish, of course, have nothing to do with all this naming by soap or pop-star malarkey. They are simply not allowed to. But this does result in a mind-numbing conformity. For reasons I can't explain, while Spanish (and Catalan) female names retain their attractiveness in spite of this conformity - Antonia, Catalina, Isabel - male names are almost uniformly uninspiring and dull - Juan, Pedro, Miguel. There are, though, Spanish names that you never or hardly ever hear: Savannah or Tierra for a girl; Caton or Nevada for a boy. Which may be just as well, as were an expectant mother and her partner to be ambling along The Mile and were to hear a local child being called thus, in a few months time a Nevada or Savannah would be registered with the office of births in Rochdale or Watford. And then five years later, when the teacher at the first school checked the register of the new intake, a little red mark would appear. The naughty chairs would be at the ready for naughty boy and naughty girl. And the teacher would probably be right.


The water fair
On Saturday I was confused. It is the 12th today, I was asking. Yes. Then why is there no storm? It is pre-ordained. Every 12th September. Or if not the 12th, then the 15th. Or to be a little less precise, any day between the 12th and the 16th, any day when you can guarantee that summer will crash, bang and wallop to a shuddering end of biblical proportions. I was out by one day. Or two if you prefer the 15th. Given the almost 100% certainty of there being an end-of-the-world weather event on either the 12th or 13th of September, why on earth do they arrange to hold the Feria del Mar in Puerto Pollensa on those two days? If they want so much water, they might as well just hold the fair of the sea in the sea.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Moody Blues, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLgdcGEqgcw. Today's title - from the bottom of my pencil case.

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