Casting spells
Sir: Like Michael Trend I spend many happy hours letting my word processor run riot through lists of proper names. I think his computer and mine should meet, as they appear to have some interesting areas of disagreement.
For example, his machine renders the Chancellor of the Exchequer as Nigel Lasagne. Mine translates Mr Lawson as Nice Lagoon, which sounds fittingly like a tax haven. His Quentin Huge comes out spell-checked on my computer as Questing Hog, a concept on from Evelyn Waugh's questing vole. His Sir Geoffrey Howl comes out, more appropriately in my view, as Sir Gentry Hoe, and so on.
Indeed my device seems to have altogether more of a feel for politics than Mr Trend's. The reader of the opposition, for example, translates as the very homely Neap Kinsfolk while Mr Douglas Hurd, for reasons I cannot explain, sounds even more like himself when described as Dog- mas Hurl.
Jonah Marigolds (Jonathan Margolis)
The Mail on Sunday, 2 Deny Street, London W8
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