Drinking alcopops with Britney, Tyler and Keeley
Caitlin Moran
I had suspected it for some time ? although I ?suspect? everything, including that I have a rare cancer of ?fat-legness? that no one as yet knows how to diagnose, and that my real father is Ringo Starr ? but, last week, it was finally confirmed to me. A typically ?spirited?* conversation on mumsnet.com, entitled ?What?s the chavviest name you can think of?? , squarely pointed ? after fingering Jayden, Scott and Chantelle ? to Caitlin.
Obviously it wasn?t always ?Caitlin? ? one of the hallmarks of chavvy names is a rubbery quality that allows them to be spelt in any number of ways, thus: ?Kaitlyn?, ?Catlynn? and ?Katelyn?. But there, ultimately, was my handle, drinking alcopops in the park with Britney, Tyler and Keeley, and dreaming of maybe, one day, marrying Ray from X Factor.
Of course, this is all what comes of meddling. My real name isn?t Caitlin at all ? I was registered Catherine, after my nan, and spent a fairly unhappy portion of my childhood being called Catie. From an early age, I felt this name was wildly unrepresentative of where I was ?at?, even though where I was at, at the time, was, judging by the photographs, playing in a sandpit in Wolverhampton, dressed in nothing but wellies and a ?Watch Out, Watch Out, There?s A Humphrey About? T-shirt.
According to my later diaries, the names I felt would really express who I was would have been Willow, Rowan and, presumably, Hornbeam.
While still in the midst of this proto-adolescent name-spat, I started writing and sending off largely unwelcome novels and newspaper articles. All, of course, were written on the thickest paper in Ryman?s, sealed with wax seals and submitted under a range of destiny-riddled nom de plumes. Looking back now, I see I made a fairly lucky escape when the first article to be accepted was one written in the week when I was being, as an experiment, Caitlin Moran. The night before, I was spelling it ?Coightlan Mhoran?. A week before, I had been ?Tatty Apple?. And for the entirety of 1990 I was ?K. T. Blue? ? a name that seemed to presume that, at some point, I might have my own pop-jazz trio and play an ill-received residency at Ronnie Scott?s.
By and large, of course, it?s wise to try to avoid making decisions that will last the rest of your life when you?re 14. One of the primary arguments against teenage pregnancy ? but one that the Government has, as yet, been too scared to address ? is that 13-year-old girls tend to bestow awful names. Names which commit to an implacable destiny. Indeed, Destiny is one of them. Destineee is even more one of them. It?s hard to imagine a Governor of the Bank of England called Chantelle. Not least because the headline the next day would be ?Oh my God!?, and the Bank of England would have to be renamed the Bank of Blingland.
Of course, the thirtysomething middle classes are just as bad at giving their children names that stymie their employment prospects. Lola is going to have a tough time kicking management butt in human resources, and it?s doubtful that either Apple or Missy is going to find immediate acceptance as an economic adviser to the Treasury. Unless, of course, the future Chancellor has a son called Pontius.
But then, he probably will, which is the fundamental unfairness between silly chav names and silly ponce names. The ponces understand and forgive each other?s ludicrous names, but close ranks over an in-coming Troy-Dwayne.
The main difference between chav names and ponce ones is that the working classes deploy names that reflect success in the present ? Ashanti, Britney, Justin. This is because, for the working classes, there is no rose-spectacled nostalgia for the past. The further you go back in time, the more incrementally awful it was to be poor. For the working classes, there?s no time like the present ? or, indeed, the future.
The middle classes, on the other hand, have no fear of the past ? when, as far as they?re concerned, all food was organic and free-range, and children played in streams all day while wearing lovely smocks. To reflect this longing for a simple, earthy, ?real? childhood, they give their children the names that the working classes in their grandparents? era would have favoured: Ruby, Charlie, Mabel, Fred.
By this reckoning trajectory, of course, our middle-class Didis, Noahs and Maddies will be, in 2027, calling their middle-class children Roy, Julie, Susan and John. And in 2055, middle-class Roy, Julie, Susan and John will be calling their middle-class kids Chelseigh, Kieron and Jade. And, maybe, Caitlin.
Because, let?s face it, Caitlin is a chav name. The proof of the chav pudding is that I chose Caitlin from my favourite book at the time. This Caitlin was determined, beautiful, witty ? and shagged lots of showjumpers on the side. Yes, she was one of the characters in Jilly Cooper?s joyful porn-fest, Rivals.
Really, it?s no better than ?Chardonnay?.
*Approximately the sound of the fishwives of Babel determined to ?have it out? once and for all ? possibly refereed by Pat Butcher and Peggy Mitchell.
Honk if you want me to drive worse
I?ve just started driving lessons ? mainly because I appear to be going through a phase of needing large, regular quantities of gravel, and my husband is often too busy not caring at all about gravel to take me to the garden centre.
Determined to be the master of my own gravel destiny in 2007, I?ve had a woman called Anna pootle me weekly around the streets of North London while I try to master the whole business of the clutch. Only three lessons in, I?m still at the stage when the very concept of a clutch enrages me ? in the era of the iPod and the hologrammatic keyboard, it?s a bafflingly outmoded element of motoring. It?s only one up from drivers having to stir the petrol as they drive.
Anyway, as we stall our way through the junctions of N4 and N8, I have been baffled by the number of drivers who will self-righteously honk at a learner who has ground to a halt at the lights. It confounds all sense of logic. Why would someone in a driving school vehicle be stationary, despite a green light? Yes, that?s right ? because they?re a sweating, panicking, clutch-pumping mess. Honking at them makes as much sense as giving a learner driver a gigantic dose of speed, or shunting into them from behind. It certainly won?t make them gain calm control of the car again any faster.
That?s why I liked a car that I saw driven by a rival driving school which was emblazoned with the simple truth: ?You peep, I stall.?
High anxiety
Meanwhile, for those who aren?t trying to find third gear while negotiating a chicane but would, nonetheless, like a gigantic dose of anxious adrenalin, consider this: it?s in two weeks today.