Why "Budgie"?
I mentioned in a reply to another Livejournal entry that I couldn't believe there's anyone reading this who didn't know the story of how I got the nickname Budgie, but that if anyone wanted to know, to ask.
andrewducker asked.
And tulip_maria flattered me by saying that "it's a good story that bears retelling".
So apologies if you've read this before...
What you have to remember is that when I first signed up online, with Compuserve, it was for "fun". This wasn't work, this was fun. So, when I visited my first online Forum, and saw people using handles, I 'reactivated' the nickname I picked up at college. Of course, naive idiot that I was, it didn't occur to me that people might be curious about the derivation of the nickname. So, in a fit of madness, I said "ok, if anyone wants to know, ask". Within a couple of days, I had something like 75 requests.
So, I threw it out as a contest: guess the derivation. I let it run for a week, and then posted something along the lines of the following:I've had suggestions that it's due to my looks, my liking for an old British television programme starring Adam Faith, my eating habits, my collections, my possible fan-worship of the Duchess of York, possibly being a window-cleaner, being "Bald and Pudgie", or that I do lots of budgets, being an accountant. [sigh]
And no-one, but no-one, guessed that I was kidnapped as a baby and brought up in the wild by friendly budgerigars.
OK, here's the true story:
In 1982, I went up to Manchester (North West England) to go to college at Manchester Polytechnic. I was doing a BA (Hons) in Accounting and Finance. Anyway, after a couple of months, I was dragged along to a "hypnotists evening" by some friends on my course, who thought it would be a bit of a laugh. And so it proved to be.. (And no, before you ask, I was not hypnotised into thinking I was a budgerigar!)
By the end of the evening, a fun time had been had by all, watching various friends fall asleep, regress by a couple of years down to a mental age of three and generally being sarcastic about the whole thing. Just as I was about to leave, someone suggested that the hypnotist have a crack at "doing Lee".
As one who was at that time game for a laugh - my, how that's changed- I said OK and the next thing I remember was everyone laughing their socks off.
Apparently,
...and here it comes, folks, this is what you've been waiting for...
...apparently, I had been hypnotised into believing that I had a small budgie in my pocket. I had taken it out, watched it fly around the room, put it into one pocket and taken it out of another - that sort of thing.
As far as I was concerned, that would have been it. One more evening that you look back at and cringe. Except that when I walked into lectures the following morning, Dave Rothburn (one of the cronies I hung around with) yelled out in front of 120 students (and the lecturer) in his best impersonation of that bloke on Carson's Show, "He-e-e-e-r-r-r-e's Budgie!"
The name stuck.
Not only did the name stick, but I was, by the end of three years at college, better known as Budgie than as Lee.
It gets worse. About five years after leaving college, I bumped into someone at a function that I'd been at college with, had been quite good friends with, but hadn't been in contact with since we both left college. We were, understandably enough, delighted to see each other. She introduced me to her husband with the immortal line :
"John, this is...erm..erm. oh, hell, this is Budgie - I'm ever so sorry, I've forgotten...erm, I only ever knew you as Budgie!"
So that's it - I hope the story was worth it....
andrewducker asked.
And tulip_maria flattered me by saying that "it's a good story that bears retelling".
So apologies if you've read this before...
What you have to remember is that when I first signed up online, with Compuserve, it was for "fun". This wasn't work, this was fun. So, when I visited my first online Forum, and saw people using handles, I 'reactivated' the nickname I picked up at college. Of course, naive idiot that I was, it didn't occur to me that people might be curious about the derivation of the nickname. So, in a fit of madness, I said "ok, if anyone wants to know, ask". Within a couple of days, I had something like 75 requests.
So, I threw it out as a contest: guess the derivation. I let it run for a week, and then posted something along the lines of the following:I've had suggestions that it's due to my looks, my liking for an old British television programme starring Adam Faith, my eating habits, my collections, my possible fan-worship of the Duchess of York, possibly being a window-cleaner, being "Bald and Pudgie", or that I do lots of budgets, being an accountant. [sigh]
And no-one, but no-one, guessed that I was kidnapped as a baby and brought up in the wild by friendly budgerigars.
OK, here's the true story:
In 1982, I went up to Manchester (North West England) to go to college at Manchester Polytechnic. I was doing a BA (Hons) in Accounting and Finance. Anyway, after a couple of months, I was dragged along to a "hypnotists evening" by some friends on my course, who thought it would be a bit of a laugh. And so it proved to be.. (And no, before you ask, I was not hypnotised into thinking I was a budgerigar!)
By the end of the evening, a fun time had been had by all, watching various friends fall asleep, regress by a couple of years down to a mental age of three and generally being sarcastic about the whole thing. Just as I was about to leave, someone suggested that the hypnotist have a crack at "doing Lee".
As one who was at that time game for a laugh - my, how that's changed- I said OK and the next thing I remember was everyone laughing their socks off.
Apparently,
...and here it comes, folks, this is what you've been waiting for...
...apparently, I had been hypnotised into believing that I had a small budgie in my pocket. I had taken it out, watched it fly around the room, put it into one pocket and taken it out of another - that sort of thing.
As far as I was concerned, that would have been it. One more evening that you look back at and cringe. Except that when I walked into lectures the following morning, Dave Rothburn (one of the cronies I hung around with) yelled out in front of 120 students (and the lecturer) in his best impersonation of that bloke on Carson's Show, "He-e-e-e-r-r-r-e's Budgie!"
The name stuck.
Not only did the name stick, but I was, by the end of three years at college, better known as Budgie than as Lee.
It gets worse. About five years after leaving college, I bumped into someone at a function that I'd been at college with, had been quite good friends with, but hadn't been in contact with since we both left college. We were, understandably enough, delighted to see each other. She introduced me to her husband with the immortal line :
"John, this is...erm..erm. oh, hell, this is Budgie - I'm ever so sorry, I've forgotten...erm, I only ever knew you as Budgie!"
So that's it - I hope the story was worth it....