CALLING NAMES

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30390, 14 March 1964, Page 9

CALLING NAMES

How intimate our sports reporters* And radio commentators are With those whose deeds they chronicle! They fore-name each particular star And, even more familiar. Shorten or nick-name. I say, “Bah!" Each time I hear or read of Whineray, Do I require the information That Whineray’s god-parents called him Wilson? I don’t. My satiation With such superfluous nomination Accounts for this expostulation. I’m tired of John Reid, Mike Shrimpton, Bev Congdon, Didi Motz, Bert Sutcliffe, Paul Barton, Murray Chapple, John Sparling, “Giddy” Gedye, old Uncle Ebenezer Longstop and all And I’m tired, too—but forgive me if my memory of the Rugby types and their dear little nursery names is looser—of Harry Herewini, Arty Arnold, “Touch” Laidlaw, Wally Nathan, Sam Caulton, Dan Dick, Pompey Kirby (no, sorry, he’s the manager; he’s out), Fritz Young, Watty Watt, “Sissy” Tremain, old Uncle Don Clarke, boots and all. Consider, please, how it would sound If workers in a similar sphere, Critics in all the various arts, Were to attack our eye or ear In like form, hoping to endear Their heroes and themselves. Well, hear: The famous names 1 sing of Johnny Dryden, Alex Pope, Georgie Eliot, Geoff Chaucer, Willy Wordsworth, Perce Shelley, Bill Thackeray, Tommy Hardy, Rud Kipling, Bob Browning, Jim Boswell, “Girlie” Milton, Old Uncle “Swan" Shakespeare and all. Also the famous names I sing of Joe Haydn, Wolf (or "Mad”) Mozart, Fred Chopin, “Brum” Brahms, Eddie Elgar, Tommy Tothill (no, he composed football at Christ’s College; out of his place here), Benny Britten, Sebby Bach, Dick Wagner, Jake Mendelssohn, and Old Uncle (“Lud”) van Beethoven, e tutti. Also the famous names I sing of Gas John, Viv Vermeer, Josh Reynolds, Mike Angelo, Len da Vinci, Ray Raeburn, George Giotto, Rube Rubens, “Slim” Goya, Nelly Kneller, “Ganger” Gauguin, and old Uncle Ron Rembrandt vai. Rijn and all, Uncle Ron Rembrandt and all. -J.H.E.S. •Those of "The Press” honorably excepted.