Life Apologies to Vicky whose name I spelt so horrifically incorrectly yesterday. Her email did remind me that somewhere along the line a standard usage of my own name seems have crept in. Going to an erzatz grammer school, from the age of eleven I was called by my surname, so for years for an inordinate number of my classmates, I was Burns. Which was a shame because I made a point of using the first name of everyone I liked. For a while I tried to get people to use a nickname I'd made up myself, the terribly embarassing 'Image' which doesn't seem to mean anything other than that I had no shame. After a while I became Stuey to my friends which was nice and folksy and is still in use for some people. But since then, I've become a standard Stuart, which for some reason sounds very formal. Stuart... Which is why I sign my emails Stu, even in work, it's just nicer.

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