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Tuesday 11 September 2012

RIP LdP. Meet RR reborn


I know: most of you know my real name. Its best feature is its symmetry; identical initials, eight letters followed by eight letters. Google it and discover a child molester, an arsonist and a retired American football player ahead of me in the standings. I need to be more famous if I'm to gain the approval of the book market.

My first name was chosen to compensate for the dull surname. My brothers came off far, far worse. There's something clunky, almost Meccano-like about Roderick but by now I hardly care. It sounds more sexy pronounced with a French accent and all my French teachers have been women. The abbreviation, Rory, is clearly ridiculous and I've never encouraged it. Mrs RR refers to me as Robin, the majority as Robbie, all Americans as Rod. Roddie is discouraged since it implies short pants.

Roderick means "fame rule" which is what I aim to achieve.

As you can see I've changed the title pic. Carpenters' workshops look organic and smell nice, smithies like the gateway to Hell, car repair shops are esoteric. People who do a lot of writing are either surrounded by mess (ergo, a disorganised mind) or inhuman tidiness (Who'd marry him?).  The desk is a self-assembly job from Ikea and figures in Gorgon Times.

The cushiony thing on the seat is a Putnam Wedge, recommended by a back-pain doctor. Other than technoid books, most of the paperbacks are in French. But not for showing off since few get this far at Chateau Robinson.

Having discarded two blogonyms I presently feel somewhat naked round my lower parts. I have a reputation to re-establish; it would be far easier practising arson.

Photo: Aged 14, Ilkley Moors in background. 

7 comments:

  1. To refer to a remark of yours long ago I am almost embarrassed on your behalf. And a photograph! This must be something to do with your coming of age as a novelist. Congratulations.

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  2. I am one of the other brothers. I was given the name Conrad to distinguish the dull surname.

    That was an embarrassment when I was at school, and that embarrassment persisted for years afterwards until I gained a management position in my career, when ensuing confidence brought the realisation that I had a powerful asset. I found that when I made a strong point of using the name all the time, customers and colleagues picked up on it and respected it, and were more inclined to remember me. I have continued to promote my name in the eighteen years since my retirement, but what damage was caused in the early years can never be quantified.

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  3. I don't call you Rod.

    You must have had a swift growth spurt around age 14, for it looks like you shot up way before you filled out.

    Same thing happened to my youngest brother. He began to fill out after he reached 6'3".

    Glad you're using your true name.

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  4. Plutarch: I remind myself that there came a time when you added a photograph (now removed) and started splashing your real name around. As far as I remember there was no explanation. In my case I'm cross-referencing with the name which is and will be on the front of my novels but even so there's a sensation of stealing into the light, coming out of the closet, etc. My natural reaction is to write this off as vanity but that isn't wholly true. There is also a sense of heightened responsibility even though I don't think it will last.

    RW (zS)/Lucy: A sort of "I launch this blog Tone Deaf and God bless all who sale in her." But note that "her". Is a blog feminine? I rather hope so.

    Sir Hugh: The only thing you can say about our parents is that all our middle names (which I've tended to think of as pooftah-ish) never caught on. A benefit of being brought up in Bradford.

    The Crow: A veritable stick of asparagus though it was a couple of decades before I ate my first tip (and went wild for it thereafter). There's more to this pic than is obvious. It belongs to a period after my parents were divorced and my father used to take the three of us out for Sunday afternoons. These rarely worked out. I didn't much care for my father's company and my interests were not his. A visit to the outdoor swimming pool was found to be mutually agreeable (He read the Sunday paper) and probably continued into non-seasonal times. I can remember posing for this photo quite well: it was damnably cold and I inflated my chest to give myself substance. I also deliberately looked serious because other photos had showed I was no good at smiling. I am still that shivering schoolboy despite what the mirror says: the same doubts, the same arrogance, the same desire to be separate. Were I able to return now to that pool in my adult form I would probably cuff the ear of that poor scrap: "Go and be superior somewhere else," I'd say.

    I eventually topped out at 6 ft 1½ in. In one of those unexpected developments it was only within the last decade that I've been truly aware that I am taller than most British males.

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  5. Glad to see you staking a claim under RR. (Though I still think of you as BB, which reminds me why childhood nicknames of friends are so hard to forget!)

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