Changing my name by Deed Poll

This week I saw this offer come up on Groupon:

And I obviously bought it immediately. I’m not a twat. I know a bargain when I see one. The offer is from a company called UK Deed Poll, and their website has a number of testimonials from happy customers. Including this one:

“I rang the Deed Poll and the young lady was very helpful. Made my payment over the phone. Received in a couple of days.”
Peter Cockburn, Berkshire. September 2013.

No wonder he changed his name! Peter Cockburn! Imagine being called Peter! It’s so old fashioned.

My name has always been a problem for me. Everyone seems to struggle with “Max Dickins”; people always spell it Max Dickens, and then ask me whether I’m related to Charles. I’ve actually stopped correcting people who spell it wrong, I haven’t got the energy. Unless it’s mentally wrong. British Gas once made out a bill to “Axe Dickend”. Which is less a name, and more an order.

I've often thought of changing my name for sheer convenience, but also because “Max Dickins” just isn’t very showbiz. It's hard to see it up in lights. Have you seen Great British Bake-off? The bloke who presents it is called “Paul Hollywood”. That's his actual name. I bet they didn't even make him audition. He just walked into the casting room, and the producers went "So, what's your name?" And he would have purred "My name's Paul Hollywood" And they would have given him the job on the spot. And then he probably made love to them for hours. 

So on Wednesday evening last week, sat on my living room sofa, Groupon voucher in my hand, I decided it was time for a change. But I've had so many loyal readers of this blog that I thought I would let the public decide. So on Facebook and on Twitter I laid down the gauntlet to my followers: 

“I'm changing my name by Deed Poll to whatever your best suggestion is. Go nuts.”

And there were hundreds and hundreds of responses. The first one was:

Ulrich Van Der Hoogstraaten

I loved it! So much of getting a new name was about throwing off my old identity. My Groupon Adventure had changed me. I was living a different life now, full of risk and fun and spontaneity. Groupon was the tool I had used to create a new me, and I needed a new name to match. Max Dickins sounds like an accountant in Slough with three kids and a fat wife. Ulrich Van Der Hoogstreaaten sounds like a dildo entrepreneur with a pet cheetah.

More and more suggestions flooded in:

Troy Spectacular

Noah Swallows
Lance Turtleneck
The Plan
Ghost Cop
Fax Me

Mr Prick Whimper

Shandy Mattress

Weepy Rugs
Max Groupon

Dirty Naan

Pardon Me

Cornfed Hen

The Hotel Brothers

The Woolf

Imagine being called "The Woolf"!

"Do you, Emma Jane Hattersley, take "The Woolf", to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do".

Turgid Steel

Notta Spy

Moist Cake

Twelve Inches

Wasabi Burns

Whatha Dickens

Publicity Stunt

Lone Gunman

Blonathan Dunce

The Feast

Minty Clam

Rempklt Sassoon

Some great names there, and weirdly I think I regularly get spam e-mails from a lot of these guys already.

There are some rules when you change your name by Deed Poll. For example, it can't be offensive, so I ruled these suggestions out:

Jimmy Saville

Black Guy

Peter The Rapist

Christ

Captain Cunt Smasher

Crumbly Gash

Cleaveland Steamer

Roger Mee

Dick Blisters

Clive Bastard

Mucky Dickend

And the names must be pronounceable, so these were out too:

Malcolm Muhlnumnuhmehrr

やなはワム

It also can't contain numbers, symbols or punctuation marks, so these were gone:

Dirk Sad?

Mine’s The Beef

That's Not My Hat

Oleg’s Bollock-Hammock

I’m Spartacus

There can be no copyright protection of names, meaning all these were fine:

Justin Bieber

Sir Trevor McDonald

Lil Wayne

Google It

Michael McIntyre (imagine the extra bookings!)

Ask Jeeves

Batman

Whoopi Goldberg

Tim Henman

So what did I go for? I was keen on Ulrich Van Der Hoogstraaten, but if I got irritated by people misspelling Dickins, this would be leaping straight from the frying pan into the fire. So it had to be spellable, but I also wanted to keep my first name. Otherwise the confusion would be terrible. If I changed my name to "The Woolf", say, then someone trying to get my attention would just end up shouting "The The The The The" repeatedly, and I'd obviously ignore them, assuming they had a stutter.

So it would be Max Something. But was that Something? Surely it had to be a nod to my new ideology? A passionate endorsement, a linguistic shrine to Groupon? Surely it had to be:

Max Groupon

Yes, last week I became Mr Groupon. Or more specifically Lord Groupon, after receiving my peerage in January.

Where will it take me? Only Groupon will decide.

BREAKING NEWS!

You can buy tickets for my Edinburgh show here: https://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/max-dickins-my-groupon-adventure

Listen to my podcast here: www.dregscomedy.co.uk 

I'm losing my mind

I think things may have got out of hand. My Groupon Adventure started as an attempt to breathe spontaneity and fun back into my life; to explore my potential; to remember and remake myself. But I think I am now addicted. It has taken over everything. Groupon bleeds into my every thought. My bank account has been decimated.

This week I bought myself a personalized birthday cake on Groupon:

You know the saying, "If he could eat himself, he would"? It's meant to denote a narcissist. Someone so self-absorbed that they literally find themselves delicious. Well, on Saturday I ate myself. And it was yummy. I have an incredibly mourish face.

Do you know what the sad thing is? It wasn't even my birthday. I had to get them to write "Happy Birthday" on it to make it less embarrassing when I picked it up. I basically bought an edible shrine to myself, and that is only acceptable if it's cloaked in faux-celebration. The lady in the cake shop told me that "it's the weirdest thing we've ever put on a cake". Which made me feel simultaneously ashamed and also proud.

I didn't eat the entire cake by myself. I shared it with some of the few friends I have left:

I'm thinking of trying to market my cake to the mainstream, perhaps get supermarkets to stock it. We need a challenge to the ubiquitous "Caterpillar Cake", and this could be it. Everyone fights over the caterpillar's face, as it's the best bit. But, there isn't much face to go round, hence most people are dissapointed. But the beauty of my cake is that it's nearly 100% face. It's a no brainer. As in, I clearly have no brain.

I'd like to pretend that the cake was an isolated incident of egotism, but I'd be lying. The weekend before last I spent an entire Sunday building a 150 piece puzzle of my own face:

Puzzling behaviour

But it gets worse. I have also bought this:

It cost £150. To put that in context, that could feed 30 African orphans for a month.

It's been on my bed for about three weeks, so I've sort of forgotten it's there. I brought a girl back last night and she took one look at it and left immediately. She said that she "could never be with someone so self-obsessed". Of course, I defended my corner, I said "You're talking fucking bullshit, I'm not self-obsessed. This is a joke". After she left I was so upset that I just gorged myself on my own cake.

Also, that double-duvet is technically tax deductible. As you have laughed at it, and I am a comedian, it counts as a reasonable business expense. Which means that you 9 to 5 wage slaves have subsidized it! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

But seriously, as you kind of own a tiny part of it through your tax subsidy, do feel free to come over at any time and sit on my face.

Actually I am begging you, please visit me. I AM SO LONELY.