Roll

When I was a kid they were buns. I’m not sure who was responsible for this terminology, since to all the other children they were rolls. My Geordie Dad is suspect number one, though food was normally “named” by my Mum, if only because she did more with it. My Dad’s relationship with food was purely as an end user.

I don’t mean my Mum named food. We didn’t have a tin of tuna called Harold, or a loaf of bread called Gunhilda, though we almost certainly should have done. The world seems divided up into those things that you are allowed to name – pets, cars, pot plants, boats, stuffed animals, genitals*, bicycles, mystical swords etc – and things that you are not – trees, curtains, knees, staplers**, non-mystical swords, fog, socks etc. Who makes up these rules anyway? Can I fight back by naming the rule that stops you calling things by a human name something? Can I call it Mary?

Conventions are being undermined all the time. There’s a TV channel called Dave, and that’s also the name of a friend’s dog. Somewhere out there is a geranium called Simon. And a gerbil called Derek. That’s all well and good, but when are we going to get a human called Pipsqueak?

Possibly when Peaches Geldof becomes a mother.

* Honest to God I have no pet name for my penis. But having said that I’d be absolutely horrified if any of my friends admitted to having one (a name for it, that is), so you have no reason to trust me on this.

** Though I did once have a stapler called Maureen.