MAKING A NAME FOR ITSELF
Michael Trend wrestles
with his computer's creative nomenclature
RETURNING recently from holiday to the task of compiling The Spectator's Por- trait of the Week', I was pleased to find that my word-processing computer had lost nothing of its sense of humour. I refer to its 'spelling correction programme'. This ex- traordinary disk refuses to recognise prop- er names and is unable to pass most of them by without offering its own sugges- tion from its bank of 'real' words. Last week, for instance, it told me that it would prefer my reference to the now estranged husband of the monarch's daughter to read Mark Foul-ups. (Rather more subtly it called his wife Princess One.) I first noticed this phenomenon when I arrived one week at The Spectator's offices with a piece of copy that referred to President Bed All of Tunisia. While one must, of course, make allowances for autres pays autres moeurs, I thought this looked a little strange. I checked it up at once and found that President Ben Ali would probably give less offence. Since that time I have not only kept an eagle-eye on my capricious computer's mischievous tendencies but also a list of its better suggestions.
Much of the material I give it to think about comes from the political world; I am glad to say that the computer shows itself to be utterly non-partisan in its disrespect for the whole tribe of our parliamenta-
rians. It has been very unsympathetic to the so-called middle parties, wilfully refer- ring to David Owen in the past tense as David Owed. The current leader of the SLD is dismissed as Paddy Outdone; perhaps the computer thinks that he has been overshadowed by the figure it calls Sir Surreal Smith? Labour contains Brian Gul- led, Eric Huffier and Brawny Grant.
The party of power, however, comes in for the greatest abuse: what would Norman Fowler think if I had ever let my computer get away with calling him Normal Failure? Or John Biffen whom it always called Mr Buffoon? I felt, though, that it was on particularly witty form during the recent Cabinet reshuffle. The man who was drag- ged unwillingly from the Foreign Office appeared as Sir Geoffrey Howl. At the same moment Mr Readily readily hopped from the Environment to Trade and Indus- try and Mrs Angela Rumbold survived at her Education desk waiting, perhaps, to be Rumbled next time round.
There are no problems with the Bakers or Thatchers of this world, unashamed as they are of declaring their roots among the ouvrier classes; although the computer likes to remind Kenneth Clarke of the ancestral Clerk he carries around in his family luggage. Names taken from nature it respects — a Heath or Bush — as it does those shared with familiar objects — such
as President Bongo of the Gabon, or the former president of Zimbabwe, the Revd Canaan Banana. (It has a different sort of respect for names which verge on total obscurity, such as Mrs Vigdis Finnbogadot- tir, Iceland's president. It just passes over these as if it hasn't noticed them.) But for a.reason I have not yet worked out it specialises in suggestive food imagery when it is dealing with senior Conservative figures. Those who know what a (Normal) Turbot looks like will understand the delight of its appearance instead of Nor- man Tebbit. The Chancellor of the Exche- quer, we are told, is called Nigel Lasagne. (His son, I discovered one day by accident, is called Demonic Lasagne.) Overeating may also account for Quentin Huge, one- time Lord Chancellor. And is there a culinary connection to the references to Sizzle Parkinson? Or, maybe, this is sauce of a different kind?
For all its deep-rooted cynicism with the world of politics, when the computer is given the chance to deliver itself on other areas of our national life it can rise to the occasion. During the recent trial of a well-known British comic, it simply said — Ken Did. Not even the cloth escapes: what hope can there be, one wonders, for the Church of England when it is led by a man called Archbishop Runniest?
But it is also a commendably patriotic computer (British-made, of course). It seems to follow the Prime Minister's line on Europe: it always has a good laugh at the economic and social programme that is attached to the name of M. Jacques :Deli- rious. South Africa has featured much in the news recently, which may explain its ex-President Bother. When the former prime minister of Greece was going through 'domestic difficulties' with what the popu- lar press called his `airhostess-love' he came up as Undress, rather than Andreas, Papandreou.
One further aspect of my computer's character needs to be mentioned. It seems to have a decided, and regrettable, turn towards misogynism. I give two examples from the classier end of the market. The 'Forces' Sweetheart', Dame Vera Lynn, who appeared in last week's 'Portrait of the Week', was, quite inappropriately, Dame Very Laid. And Dame Peggy Fenner once came up as Dame Piggy Foreigner. (While we are on female parliamentarians I might add the computer's reference to the Labour front-bench spokesperson, Harriet Hormone; though this would have been even better, of course, had it referred to the Conservative Teresa Gorman.) Many people, as I have pointed out, my computer simply disdains from knowing at all; others, I suspect, it is keeping quiet about knowing. This is particularly the case with one person from the world of letters much in the news these days. Week after week I present it with the figure of Salman Rushdie and his troubled life. Week after week it replies, 'Sorry, no suggestions.'
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