The Palace fiasco last week really does sum up some extraordinarily selective double-standards and confused notions of bigotry, prejudice, and victimhood, but British people really do sometimes make things into a mess. The thing is, they don’t usually mean to.
I have, during the 65 years of my life, been constantly asked where I come from, thanks to my name. The assumption is always that I cannot possibly be from Britain though in my case this is manifestly not based on the colour of my skin. Most think the name is likely to be French and that therefore I must be French, even though I haven’t turned up wearing a beret and smoking a Gauloise or any form of French national dress. Where are you from? they say. Obviously not from Here, the Centre of the Universe. Apparently, I must be Norman, or a Huguenot. Or anything, but not British.
Incidentally, just in case you were wondering, I was born in Wimbledon and my last French ancestor was four generations ago. The name has been acquired down the unbroken male line. My father is in all other respects of English, Scottish, and Anglo-Irish origin. My mother was Scottish.
However, it is my actual name, not one I adopted along the way to make myself seem more interesting or exotic. Though I can’t tell you how many times I wished I’d changed it to something less troublesome.
I have endured an unlimited battery of variant and often absurd spellings of my name (Gaie de Pedogene was the most remarkable), as well as an abject horror on the part of almost any other indigenous British adult to try and speak my surname out loud, however easy I try to make it for them. All you have to say is Bed-why-air which you might have thought even an imbecile could manage, but despite the patient explanation the result when someone goes live is always a disaster.
This includes the committee members of societies introducing me to audiences as their lecturer who fumble with confusion and embarrassed laughter and invariably make a pig’s ear of it (three times in the last month, no less). It’s as if the prospect of pronouncing a Foreign Name annihilates all their mental functions and turns their brains into mush. They wring their hands with apologetic bewilderment, but the joke is really on me. I’m the joke because I have a joke Foreign Name.
The culprits also included every member of staff (except the French teachers) at a school where I taught for nine years in which not one would even attempt to say it – oddly, the children seemed to have no trouble with pronouncing it correctly. That was as recent as 2016. I was reduced to Mr de la Bee by the staff.
None of these people is trying to cause offence. In fact, albeit in a cackhanded way, they are trying to avoid causing offence. So, I don’t take it.
On Friday morning (December 2nd) I was on Radio 5 Live for an hour as a guest expert. The prominent, well-paid and relentlessly right-on presenter, despite having been prepped about my name, immediately screwed it up. Of course he did. I could see he was very busy as I’d been supplied with a video feed. He was tied up texting on his phone and picking his nose – it’s a tough life.
As the hour progressed his limited command of my name deteriorated. I ended up being recast as a Frenchman as he gradually converted my first name to a French pronunciation. Was he having a laugh? Is he just a twit? Or was he suggesting that I shouldn’t pretend to be anything other than a Foreigner? It was odd to find myself becoming more foreign as the time passed. Luckily, I was only on for an hour. This in spite of the fact that I’d told him my mother came from Glasgow and my cousin is the former captain of Rangers and Scotland, Richard Gough.
A high-profile BBC presenter, no less – but what if I had been guest of colour and then thrown a wobbly? He clearly didn’t give a **** about my sensibilities (if I had any) – which is quite different from flustered lecture organisers getting themselves into hopeless muddles while trying not to be offensive.
Luckily, I don’t care much because I’m used to it – but it could end his career if he tries that on with the wrong person, and especially given the sort of place the BBC is. There are therefore all sorts of issues at play here. Should I demand an apology from the BBC Director-General? If I do, I’ll never be on another BBC show.
I suppose it’s an example of a sort of British parochial xenophobic naffness rather than anything more sinister. A condescension towards anyone deemed to be from the mythical Land of Johnny-Foreigner. You know the old newspaper headline from a century ago: “Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off.”
But then, let’s be honest. It’s only human to be curious about something unusual, something different. Spotting a name as ‘Foreign’ and saying or implying so is a way of trying to sound sophisticated – even ‘considerate’. Why would any of us really expect anything different?
Yes, the name is annoying and time-wasting (I have spelled the name out and explained my nationality a million times). Conversely, I have never tried to ambush anyone with my name or sought to humiliate others for their failings. Nor could I claim to be a victim of racism because no-one would pay the slightest bit of attention in a world where some victims are more equal than others. To put it another way, life is not a bowl of cherries, and one just has to get on with it. Worse things happen at sea.
But it does cut both ways. In France I usually discover that the French are disgusted to be confronted with a Briton in possession of a far smarter French name than any of them have (the ‘de la’ automatically means it’s of aristocratic origin). And they know instantly I’m British – I only have to open my mouth. I suppose that’s the irony – it’s often assumed in Britain that I’m not British, whereas the French have absolutely no doubt where I come from.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
What is going on here? This is no accident this is an orchestrated attempt to replace Brandon with the deep states/Soros/Obama cliques next preferred candidate, probably the shallow Gavin Newsom. For those who don’t know he’s California’s Trudeau, but possibly even more amoral. Whatever Obama/Soros etc are pulling the strings on this one.
It is not just the Obamas who want a share of the spoils. Those other hereditary Democrat families may not want to sit back and see it go to the Obamas again. Will be delicious to watch them tearing each other apart.
It’s a bit like a Norman succession in many ways.
Like the Bush’s
Newsom …. or Michelle Obama? What’s the betting they go for the black female. If she announces she’s gay, or better still trans and is really a man, they’ll tick three boxes.
If MO flashes her Shlong it will be close in a run off with GN , two pricks together in fact !!
You could well be right !!
This cannot be true. ——–Why would this geriatric person who should really be looking over lake from a bath chair in a care home somewhere have “sensitive documents”?. ——-He wouldn’t know they were sensitive. He wouldn’t even know he had them. And if he did read them he would forget it 10 minutes later.
He’s been smuggling classified documents out for decades, long before he became senile.
He doesn’t know what these documents were nor can even remember whether his underwear was changed.
So the Yanks would rather have a bumbling, forgetful, senile old law breaker against whom there is real evidence as President, than Donald. Says a lot for TDS in the mass of the electorate.
I want an opinion from someone who he has spoken to recently, like Mitterand.
Trump is now odds-on with the bookies to win, and comfortably ahead in polling in swing states. I get the impression that there are not many swing voters on either side now, and not many in the middle – anyone now intending to support Trump is going to do so no matter what, and the same for Biden. Why anyone would vote for Biden is beyond me, but there you go.
Meanwhile, in other DC news, Michael Mann chose to have his defamation case heard there because its the pinnacle of probity and fair play. John Williams, Mann’s first counsel, in summing up, demeaned the whole show by playing the Trump card against Steyn. In the final minutes of the trial he linked “election deniers” with “science deniers” and asked the jury to send out a strong message to stop attacks on all the other scientists out there. (No conflation of two outcomes there then). Despite Steyn, having conducted his own defence and considered to be the victor in court exchanges, the jury found in favour of Mann and ordered Steyn to pay him $1m in damages. ‘Justice’ DC style!
Democrat cities are gulags.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/oh-the-irony-mps-welcome-migrant-thugs-then-demand-protection-from-them/
Our ever efficient MP’s now want personal protection from the “safe and effective”
illegal immigrantsthird world trash that we are importing on a daily basisThis is beyond parody.
They want protection from everyone so they can continue representing Other Interests safely but at our expense. Imported attackers makes it easier to justify.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-lefts-approach-to-democracy-if-you-cant-beat-them-ban-them/
The author makes some good points about our elites but still displays a naive belief in the ballot box.
Also while anti-elite parties are making gains elsewhere, I don’t see much blue sky here in the UK – some are planning to desert the mainstream parties for Reform – probably majority of these will be ex-Tory voters, but support for Labour who will be more of the same as the Tories but much worse is UP. So depressing that people’s dissatisfaction doesn’t push them further than “I will vote for the ‘opposition'”.
Biden—The ventriloquists dummy. —–But who is the ventriloquist?
Gotta love this ‘democracy’: When the aren’t calling each other Nazis, they’re mutually alleging insanity and/or unfitness for office. Propose policies? Oppose policies? Bah, humbug! That’s not how votes are being won!
In the light of this:
https://whitehorsebrewery.co.uk/product/stable-genius-4-0
That’s at least a decent ale.