What's My Name?

When I'm in work, I quite often make a complete and utter fucking hash of Maori names. Not out of any kind of malice, or because I can't be bothered to learn how to pronounce them*, it's just because it's tricky to let your head round if you haven't been brought up amongst it. This culminated today in a nurse making me say the same three syllables of some chap's name over and over again until I got it right. Then I thrust my ID card in her face and screamed at her "Ha!! HOW DO YOU SAY MY NAME THEN BITCH!!!11**". She recoiled like a vampire faced with garlic, or a Rhondda girl faced with a bath.

Anyway, I'm settling in a bit better now, have got to know the nurses a bit better (except for the ones that prefer nights, get on with the physios, OTs, social workers [from Porth, you can tell by the hump]. Also, I'm enjoying the company of the house surgeons I see regularly. Even the guy from Surrey, who is still speaking to me after I launched into my "Fucking Slurry, get half the bloody English team picked from there while Maynard and Morris and James get ignored***" rant.

The thing is, I'm living in a foreign country where Welsh is, if not unheard of, at least not a common thing. I have been saddled with a fucking ridiculous/awesome Welsh name, unfortunately most of the time when I'm on the phone to GPs I tend to refer to myself by my surname, as it's a damn sight easier to comprehend. So, I get my house officers, and nurses yelling at me with the anglicised form of my name, which I have never introduced myself with, but I have been answering to, just because it's easier. It's got to the stage now where it's too awkward to say "Er, actually, that's not my name."So I shall just keep ignoring it.

Imagine the possible consequences though, I could end up getting married to someone who doesn't know what my name is, because I was too polite to correct them.

*"They were all speaking English before I entered the pub, and then they started speaking Welsh"

"Have you got fucking X-ray ears or something?"

Unsurprisingly, this exchange occurred in Norfolk.

** This didn't really happen. Well, apart from the recoiling bit, but that's probably because I haven't shaved for two weeks. I never go out of my way to piss nurses off, you never know when you may need a catheter inserted...

*** You can't deny that Glamorgan have been shafted by the Wales&England selectors over the years, even if this rant is a little bit 1997.