Tuesday 13 May 2014

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

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 

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