MonoMonday 176: What's in A Name?

I'm afraid my blip name is fairly straightforward: as a Grammar School boy in the 1960s, most of the teachers called you by your surname, but one or two of the less formal lengthened Fox to Foxy, the nickname stuck with my classmates and persists in some quarters to this day.

Oddly, it's mainly been used by teammates in sporting contexts over the years but also by teaching colleagues throughout my career. Lots of the students called me Foxy (and worse, I'm sure!) when out of earshot - and sometimes when they weren't!

The alliteration and literary reference of the Folio bit just appealed to me as as an ex-English teacher.

Only one teacher called us by our first names at school: Mr Skinner who was a mild and softly spoken man yet never had any problems with discipline, taught a small group of 8 of us O Level Russian and then me and another lad went on to study it at A Level as well, so I suppose it was easier for him to take a more informal approach.

He was certainly one of the two teachers ( the other was my Form Tutor, the school's Head of English, Mr Taylor) who inspired me to take up the profession myself.

By the way, I like to think there's no flies on me!

We've spent the day cleaning Chris's old flat before he hands the keys back to his landlord on Wednesday.