Clarkson: The Weekly Times Comment Column by Jeremy Thread

So... anyone got a nickname in school? Mine was "Flieger", meaning "aviator" in English. Probably because I used to draw airplanes when I was bored through periods (which was most of the time).

I was actually talking to someone just the other day about how I've never had a nickname. People always call me by my name except when I was substitute teaching and the kids called me Miss Teacher Lady which hardly counts as a nickname. The only nick I've ever had is flydiscovery.
 
Mine came about more recently (I think it was about ten years ago), and it's the one I now use online. It came about because I had a drink and somehow ended up getting a wyvern (a kind of dragon) tattooed on my left breast.

There was a more recent discussion - again involving alcohol - that concluded the closest my arse was ever going to get to a Bugatti Veyron would be if I had one tattooed there. I don't suppose anyone has a Veyron I can sit in, so they? While I'd never welch on something like this, it would be so much more satisfying to prove my mates wrong on this occasion :lol:
 
Mine came about more recently (I think it was about ten years ago), and it's the one I now use online. It came about because I had a drink and somehow ended up getting a wyvern (a kind of dragon) tattooed on my left breast.

[insert standard statement: pics or it didnt happen]

cant say i've ever had a proper nickname myself tho.

granted, in 12th grade i went to some "christian" school or whatever.... and several girls there called me "Jesus" (much to the hate of school faculty/teachers). mostly cause i was only student there with facial hair. :p

and i have something of a more recent "nick" i got from people abbreviating the alias i've used the most online, i suppose saying "sg" is alot easier than the full length name its abbreviating (and thats a secret!).
 
[insert standard statement: pics or it didnt happen]

Sorry, that was bad form of me, wasn't it...

dragontat.jpg

You can't really see anything untoward, but I've spoilered it anyway in case you don't want to look at it, or you think it might not be worksafe/appropriate - but there's nothing porny about it :)
 
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Who doesn't want to look at breasts?!!?! ohhh right ... not in the nsfw section ... guess the spoiler thing was pertinent...


Got my nickname in my first or second year of school(so at 7 or 8). Because we were two Eriks in the class we got called by our last names. (Neither of us having a Swedish last name) his was short enough mine got modified after a common nickname pattern in sweden (carl -> calle, olof -> olle, madeleine -> madde) Because I stayed in the same school in the same class untill I was 16 that nickname stuck with me. So back in 94 when I started going online chatting and getting a home page and stuff, that's the handle/username I choose. And I've kept it even though people stopped using it RL.
 
Never did anything worthy of a nickname, and my name can't be shortened
 
I am so sad even though i have joined twitter i do not twitter and my face page is blank and i have only ever seen a i-phone on TV. :lmao:
 
I tweet, I blog constantly, I use Facebook and I'm always here and on a couple of other fora. I went to visit my parents in rural Devon for Christmas, I could get no 3G signal and I nearly went off my head with Internet withdrawal. It was hell.

And then I had an epiphany (which is ironic, as Epiphany isn't until next Wednesday): much as I have many wonderful RL friends I've met through the Internet, I had lots of real people, people I love very much, around me. For me personally, the technology had gone beyond useful and into intrusive. So I switched it off. It made all the difference, because with it switched off there was no point fretting about it... and the Internet was still there when I got back to London, who'd have thought it?!
 
This week: Mamma Mia! What an ordeal, wherein Jezza has to sit through a performance of the musical with his youngest daughter.
 
I have a terrible confession to make.

I was working in a cinema when the film version came out. I wandered around the cinema for a couple of weeks with a slightly too small t-shirt on that spread the film's title over three lines and rather embarrassingly meant I had 'MAM' written over my breasts, and a face like thunder, determined that I was going to hate it. Then one day I had to go into a screen part way through a showing and people were really, really enjoying it. I thought, they're all mad, and tried to work out why an absolutely rubbish story punctuated by annoying singing and starring my least favourite actress of her generation, Meryl Streep (who looks like a startled sheep in most of her films, a fact that makes me want to reach into the telly and put her out of my misery) was so damn popular. Then it hit me - it made people happy. I, however, remained Grinch-like until we had - the horror - the 'singalong' version and I had to stay in the cinema while the film was on. What happened next is something I consider shameful... I actually enjoyed it. I still think the story is bordering on insulting in its stupidity, my ears will never recover from Pierce Brosnan's singing and I still want to visit violence on Ms Streep but I have actually watched it voluntarily since then and despite the fact that it's everything I hate, I can't say it's as bad as I thought it would be. Then again, last time I saw it, it ended with a gigantic punch-up (something that isn't in the script) as my three nephews were playing the Reliant Rocket game on the laptop and had decided they'd had enough of both being quiet and this 'sharing' malarkey. Made it much more interesting though.
 
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Weird. I thought there'd be more chatter here about the smoking ban column.

What I fail to understand here--and it may be a simple cultural or generational difference--is how anyone can still go to someone's house and ask if they may light up inside. I don't ask. I simply excuse myself for a few minutes and step out. I usually end up with a small trail of followers, like I'm a mama duck or something. :lol:

That said, it does annoy me when all the self-declared non-smokers bum from me. Hi. I'm a smoker. A real smoker who gets mean if she goes too many hours without upping the nicotine in her system. If you're going to a party and suspect you're going to want to light up, buy your own pack. In fact, get together with the other "non-smokers" and buy one to share. No one says you have to smoke any if you decide you don't want to, and you can always give or even sell your unsmoked ones to a real smoker at the end of the night. But please stop making my problem bigger.

I can never say no, though. I just can't. It's bad smoker karma. Harrumph.
 
That said, it does annoy me when all the self-declared non-smokers bum from me. Hi. I'm a smoker. A real smoker who gets mean if she goes too many hours without upping the nicotine in her system. If you're going to a party and suspect you're going to want to light up, buy your own pack. In fact, get together with the other "non-smokers" and buy one to share. No one says you have to smoke any if you decide you don't want to, and you can always give or even sell your unsmoked ones to a real smoker at the end of the night. But please stop making my problem bigger.

I can never say no, though. I just can't. It's bad smoker karma. Harrumph.

I'm one of those people *cringes* I've never smoked, ever, I've tried it obviously but just don't enjoy it... and then I get drunk and end up bumming (normally only one in a night but still...) a ciggy off someone just to smoke incredibly badly at a remedial level and then go all dizzy. Wyvernchick will vouch for this behaviour when we've been out boozing. The thing is, I have absolutely no clue why! So I apoogise and will try my hardest not to do it again. Honest.
 
^ There's a difference between nonsmokers who have the very occasional social cigarette (like you) and the reformed smokers who are in the phase where they'll still smoke while drinking or at parties but refuse to buy their own packs. People like you are fine, even sort of endearing, and in fact I make sure to bring extras for those nights when I'm sure to encounter them. It's those others who are the problem.

I know why you do it, though. It's because cigarettes and booze go together like chocolate and, erm, more chocolate. :)
 
^ There's a difference between nonsmokers who have the very occasional social cigarette (like you) and the reformed smokers who are in the phase where they'll still smoke while drinking or at parties but refuse to buy their own packs. People like you are fine, even sort of endearing, and in fact I make sure to bring extras for those nights when I'm sure to encounter them. It's those others who are the problem.

I know why you do it, though. It's because cigarettes and booze go together like chocolate and, erm, more chocolate. :)

I suspect it's probably a terrible need to fit in, or even a secret suspicion that the people who are smoking are talking about more interesting things, or are having more fun than those inside. I do get some quite affectionate looks when I attempt my F-grade smoking amongst the true professionals! You're right though, booze and fags (in the British sense) go together like fish and chips, jelly and ice-cream and gin and tonic...

Even as a non-smoker I sometimes miss the smell of cigarettes in pubs - partly because some of the less salubrious establishments are not as clean-smelling as I'd drunkenly hoped. :p
 
I think i am the only person in the world who is over the age of 12 and never tried a fag.
I just can't stand the smell and the thing that gets me most are people like my dad he had to give up smoking because he needed a bypass.
He went though the stage where your body coughs up all the gunk after giving up the same time his ribs were cracked in two from the op. Also he got though the i really want a fag or i am going to kill someone stage because he was bed ridden and no one in the family was going to go out and buy him death on a stick.
So when he's better i buy him a dog so he will take daily walks like the doctor says and what does he do he uses the dog walks as a excuse to have a not so secret fag.:wall:
Why do smokers go though all that just to start killing yourself again.:jawdrop:
 
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