A Harper by any other name

Today's post is a note on names.

As you will know, I use nicknames to refer to people in this blog instead of real ones. I'm still not sure why, as I doubt anyone who doesn't know the true identities of everyone I write about reads this account. But it certainly adds an air of mystery, and is fast becoming the Next Big Craze (and yes, this is my blog, and I'm allowed to exaggerate).

The blog nickname is now a fashion item, something convenient to take with you wherever you may go. Portable, attractive, and personalised. What's not to love? They're extremely desirable, and only available to a select few.

For example, my sister entered my room only a few minutes ago to complain, after reading the previous post. 'You've mentioned me twice, and I don't have a nickname yet! Drummer Boy has one, but I'm only in as your little sister.'

I, who was in the middle of a perplexing question on my Maths assignment, sighed. 'What kind of thing do you want?'

'Um . . .' she stalled. 'How about - Princess - Narnia - Trilogy - um . . . Pi - Ishiguru - Nix . . .'

'Are you reading those names off my bookshelves?'

'Possibly.'

'Well, I suppose you could be - Pntpin. No, that's not a word. How about . . . Pontoon?'

'I can't have that! It makes me sound fat!'

'Well, what do you want?'

'I don't know. But I want you to write a story about me. The last time you wrote about me you just said I was reluctantly grating cheese. I want a proper one.'

Inspiration struck. 'How about the Reluctant Cheese Grater?'

'No!'

'Or the RCG.'

'No.'

'Well, unless you can think of anything better, that's what it's going to be.'

She then hung on my door handle for the next few minutes, whining, until she finally got bored and vacated the room.

Sister o' mine (name unmentioned), you have 24 hours before the RCG sticks. If you want to make another suggestion before that time is up, feel free. Otherwise, Cheese Grater it will be. And as I foresee keeping this blog well into my adult life, and people are doubtless going to be curious as to the origin of the acronym 'RCG', I would use this time wisely.

I generally let people choose their own nicknames, unless I have to write about them before meeting them again. In this case, I choose a name based on what I know about them. I often have to do this anyway, as people can be surprisingly indecisive. Middle names are a good place to start. With Ariane, for example. And partly Marie-Clare. Also Shoelace, but to a lesser degree. Shoelace is half-Chinese (the other half, I think, is Scottish) and her middle name is Suling. This nickname isn't new, she'd had it for some time before I started this blog. It was accidentally coined by Ariane, who, upon hearing the name, went 'You know, Suling sounds a lot like Shoelace.' Since then, it's taken off.

A lot of the nicknames are ones that were already in use. Peanut, for example. And Lala. Giuseppe was never a nickname, but it used to be the subject of a joke between us so it seems fitting to have it now.

Anyway, since the beginning, the nicknames have gained astonishing popularity. As mentioned, Giuseppe now calls me 'Leslie' in school. She even called it across the room in Maths yesterday - to my shame, I looked up. At my school, we get jumpers at the end of Year 10 (just to prove we've been there, probably). They have 'Year 10 2010' (or whatever year) written across the front, and a nickname on the back. Giuseppe, Marie-Clare and I are all considering getting our blog names on the back. Nobody else will get it, but we love to perplex.

I personally will have to go with 'Leslie M.' as there is already someone with the last name Harper in our year. In hindsight, it wasn't the best name to choose. Especially as there's also a photographer called 'Leslie M. Harper' (they couldn't even pick a different middle initial! The cheek!). I suppose I could go back and change it to 'Lander'. But I probably won't.

I even created a coat of arms for the name:

The castle thing is because Leslie means 'grey tower' (or 'holly garden', but when was the last time you saw a picture of a holly garden on a coat of arms?). The owl is the Egyptian hieroglyph for M. Also, I like owls. I'll assume you can guess what the harps are for. If you can't - well, I'll just assume that you can. The character on the bottom right is for my star sign (I'm not so big on the zodiac, but it also looks like an M. It also looks a bit like an MP, which is good, because I like Monty Python. Not because I want to be a politician. As I don't). The motto should mean 'In strange things we trust'. It probably doesn't, though, as I used an internet translator.

Seeing as I've done the others, I should probably put a rationale of my name as well. Leslie is the middle name of the pianist (and member of The Comedy Store Players) from Whose Line Is It Anyway. Boy, was that a vague reference. The 'Harper' is after David Harper, from the second series of an awesome English TV show. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_is_David_Lander for a bit of an explanation. Or don't if you don't want to. I'll probably tell you all about it at a later date anyway.

The M is from the character of M in 'James Bond'. I'll tell you what it stands for as soon as he does. Or she, depending on whether you're thinking about the books or the new movies.

Anyway. The history of names. Extremely exciting. I've tried hard, and I'd like to think that everyone is happy with their nickname, from Marie-Clare (who looks French) to Gwen (who wanted Guinevere, but had to settle with the next best thing) to Chinny (whose real name is a nickname anyway: we call her that so often, in fact, I had to give her a new one).

With the possible exception of the RCG, anyway.

Leslie's Recipes: Leek-and-Potato Soup

My family are convinced that I am a budding young chef. They refuse to accept the fact that the only time I ever cook things is when I'm hungry, and even then it's just mixing varying amounts of milk, flour, and eggs together, tipping the mixture into a frying pan, and hoping some kind of pancake-like product comes out at the end. And so, when my mother suggested to me that I could cook leek-and-potato soup for dinner, I was less than enthusiastic. I think I would have objected had I not been watching an episode of 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' (the British version, obviously) at the time. I was distracted, and my will power was minimal. And so, here is my own, personalised, recipe for leek-and-potato soup. Do not try this at home.

1. Find 2 leeks. Notice that the recipe calls for 6 leeks. Decide it probably doesn't matter, as they are big leeks. Try to wash leeks. Get bored. Leave leeks in a bowl of water to wash themselves.

2. Find some potatoes. Spend 10 minutes looking for potato peeler. Find peeler. Peel potatoes.

3. Try to measure out 30g of butter. Get frustrated with butter. Put a medium sized lump that looks like it weighs about 30g in the pot. Then put another one in, because I like butter.

4. Viciously hack the tops and bottoms off the leeks. Chop leeks. Have leeks inspected by nearby adult, who pronounces them 'not clean enough'. Put bits of leek in a different bowl of water to wash themselves properly.

5. Find onion. Decide cannot be bothered to chop whole onion. Chop onion in half instead. While doing this, let the knife slip, leaving a painful cut across two fingers. Chop onion half into pieces as quickly as possibly, then throw pieces into the pot and slam the lid in, to prevent them from making your eyes red. It is very important that you drop quite a lot of onion while doing this.

6. Find 2 cloves of garlic. Throw away one when you find a weird black spot on it (the plague?). Chop remaining piece and put in the pot with the rest of the stuff.

7. Rescue leeks from water. Put them in pot. Turn stove on and put the lid on the pot.

8. Look in fridge. Find some leftover chocolate icing remaining from the Ringo cake. Eat icing. Forget to stir pot.

9. After 10 minutes, remember to stir pot. Hope family aren't that sensitive to burnt food.

10. Put water in pot. Discover that recipe says to 'add one fresh bayleaf'. Cannot find fresh bayleaf. Put two dried bayleaves in to make up for it. This is what they call creative cooking.

11. Leave soup to boil. Go and watch television. Return to kitchen when sister complains soup is making 'weird noises'.

12. Discover 'weird noises' are made by soup trying to boil over. Turn heat down. Go back to watch television. Turn television off when cooking show comes on.

13. Soup has finished boiling. Now for the fun bit: to blend the soup. Search kitchen and discover family is too cheap to own a blender. Find a stab mixer instead.

14. Stab mix the soup. Lack of prior experience with said instrument means both kitchen and you are liberally spattered in green mush. Looks like you've been sneezed on by a giant.

15. Realise you forgot to remove the bayleaves before starting the blending. Decide it is probably too late, as little bits of bayleaf are now scattered all through the soup. Hope people don't notice the dark green, leafy specks.

16. Serve soup to family. Realise have forgotten to put seasoning in. Are basically serving bland green mush.

17. Warm up bread rolls to have with soup.

18. Eat soup. Receive assurances from family that bread was 'very nice indeed'.