Competition: Jobsworths

John Whitworth · #1 03-31-2011, 02:22 AM

Lucy Vickery presents this week's competition

In Competition No. 2690 you were invited to invent names to fit jobs.

This assignment was suggested to me by a regular and long-standing competitor-who-wishes-to-remain-nameless, and was also a favourite of the brilliant Mary Ann Madden, who for many years presided over New York magazine’s literary competition.

Several of you fondly remembered Kenneth Tynan’s superlative ‘Charles Louis D’Ince’, bandleader, while Nigel Harding drew my attention to a Radio 4 report some years ago about an American financial planner called Rosie Scenario.

Cyberspace is groaning with websites giving lists of comedy names of this ilk so I was looking for unprecedented levels of wit and ingenuity. Inevitably, there was a fair amount of repetition: step forward and take a bow, Patti O’Dawes, home improvement consultant; Rick O’Shea, sniper; Walter Wall, carpet fitter; Millie Tant, union leader; Claude Baddely, lion tamer; Lars Torders, publican; Joe King, comedian; Toby Ornottoby, Shakespearean actor; Sam O’Nella, bacteriologist; Bill Moore, commercial lawyer; Alf Resko, outside events organiser; Orson Kart, rag-and-bone man.

The winners, below, get £4 per name.

Sir Miles Wheatley: anger-management consultant (and pioneer)
Menzies May-Forte: Chinese porcelain expert (from Edinburgh)
Tania Hyde-Boyes: dominatrix
W.J. Webster

Ewan Hughes-Army: nightclub bouncer
Bruno Moore: retired publican
Daley Terror: urban off-licence owner
Steve Baldock

Ophelia Payne: grief counsellor
Eileen Rightward: Spectator columnist
G.M. Davis

Sonia Conscience: hellfire preacher
Evelyn Tent: satanist priest
Basil Ransome-Davies

Aubrey Welwyn-Thierry: political philosopher
Rudi Juan Linas: stand-up comedian
Xavier Pennis: financial adviser
Adrian Fry

Mr E. Mann: spy
Adolf Innkeeper: aquarium owner
Tom Singleton

Cass Traightem: lecturer, women’s studies
John Samson

Airey Buller: PR executive
Will Fawcett-Inman: colonoscopist
Jess Canterbury-Boothroyd: professional layabout
Reece Peckman: hip-hop singer
Patrick Smith

C. Venison-Dye: travel agent
Virginia Price Evans

Torquil Kewer: Freudian psychoanalyst
George Simmers

Bertha Deblooze: jazz singer
Derek Morgan

Pierre Revue: academic journal editor
J. Seery

Dave Aleutian (Native Alaskan People’s Independence Campaigner)
Ilsa Raglio: Mozart expert
Brian Murdoch

Aldous N. Moore: Utopian
Frank Osen

Helena Handcart: president of the Humanist Association
John Whitworth

Polly Glott: EU translator
Iain Crawford

Amitav Guest: futurologist
Pete Ritchie

Marigold Always: dating agency proprietor
Harriet Elvin

Gordon le Knowles: economist
P.C. Parrish

R. Scleft: builder or car mechanic
Catherine Benson

Gerry Mander: MP
Una McMorran

R, Gymladd: pirate
Grahame Jones

Hugh Geoffrey Knight: outstandingly successful gigolo
Nick Campailla

Cheryl Proffit: Co-op director
Steven Latter

Jayne Osborn · #2 03-31-2011, 04:03 AM

Congrats to Bazza, George, Frank and John for reaching the finishing line; you were up against it with this comp.

Some real good 'uns amongst this lot, aren't there?

Chris O'Carroll · #3 03-31-2011, 08:52 AM

Congratulations are in order for all the winners, rude and otherwise. (I think, John, that a few pleasingly improper entries did make the cut -- Cass Traightem, Will Fawcett-Inman, Hugh Geoffrey Knight.)

Just for the record, I know, or know of, urologists named Dr. Glover, Dr. Cox, and Dr. Dick Tapper. Really. I don't know of a gynecologist named Michael Hunt, but if you were that Mike, wouldn't you at least consider that profession?

Roger Slater · #4 03-31-2011, 12:00 PM

Congrats, friends.

I'm despairing once more of my ability to get back in the winner's circle. I think Lucy must not like me. She'd probably like me to Diane Moulder.

Jayne Osborn · #5 03-31-2011, 12:04 PM

There was once a manager of a garden centre in Milton Keynes, called Mr Plumtree, which caused a fair amount of hilarity locally.

I guess we'll never know whether anyone actually did submit Mike Hunt to Lucy?

(Yes, Bob, I for one was surprised that none of yours made it. Don't get disheartened

)

Jerome Betts · #6 03-31-2011, 12:43 PM

Still on real names matching occupations, I once called in a plumber, Mr Main,and I remember a sign in Oxford, F.Sheen French Polisher. There is, or was, a Mr Scales, a Brixham fisherman, Mr Hewitt, a forester, and Mr Down a demolition contractor. The local Yellow Pages have farmers with names like Bale, Bull, Sheaves, Steer, Veale and even Blight.

Courage, Roger. Toujours l'audace. At least you managed to completely forget to submit your strained analogy entry (an excellent one). I sent in my three so-so efforts, but the email was timed five minutes after the deadline of twelve o'clock.

John Whitworth · #7 03-31-2011, 12:48 PM

In Twickenham, where Alexander Pope lived, there is a Funeral Director called Wake and Paine. They could have coffined my father but I went elsewhere.