Louis Armstrong is unimaginative I think. Satchmo is much cleverer. The nicknamers at our school were clearly more intelligent - or spent less time on their studies
Most of our teachers had nicknames that they were unaware of, so they needed to be obscure. Everybody called the headmaster Mr White "Chalky", but unbelievably the staff were unaware of which teacher was Chalky! Apparently in their youth Chalky was a common nickname for a teacher irrespective of their surname. We had one known as "The Drop" a skeletal colourless, hairless zombie like creature with a predilection for using the cane. I expect he is rotting in hell by now
S.O.S - Save Our Steel! 1971 Raleigh Mercury 2010 Condor Fratello 1980 Peugeot Tandem 1989 MBK Aventure MTB 195? Viking Severn Valley 1951 Raleigh Lenton Sports See them here http://tinyurl.com/Mikewsmiths-Bikes
I had a "Zac" Newton working for me in the mid80s when we were deployed to the States. He was a bit of a lad, and when we were in Wilmington NC - the home of the Cecil B Demille studios - they were filming "From the Hip" starring John Hurt.
The leading lady - Elizabeth Perkins - was rather smitten by Zac, and they "spent quite some time" together. (That's a euphemism )
We had a woodwork teacher whose surname was Burgess. He was initially known as Bird-eye, from the alliteration with Burgess I suppose, but he was a tall man with his head in the clouds. Eventually, perhaps to avoid detection, this was cryptically changed to Oiseau, which was in turn abbreviated to Wazz. That pre-dated Tony Capstick's use of the phrase "parrot-faced wazzock" by several years and I've since wondered if there was a connection.
Once worked with a chap whose nickname was fellatio. It had an innocent explanation - he had a Mexican bandit moustache so we called him Jose which then became Jose Feliciano then just Feliciano then....
'Give me my bike, a bit of sunshine - and a stop-off for a lunchtime pint - and I'm a happy man.' - Reg Baker
I don't get most of these, being too young. The one I like was the rugby player Martin Offiah (I hope that is spelled correctly) who was said to be known as "Chariots"...
fimm wrote:I don't get most of these, being too young. ...
Some people can be hurtful.
Eleanor Rigby is presumably before your time but you must be familiar with the song about her. We had an Eleanor Rigby in the days when the song was newly released. Ken (his real name) was also known as "Electric Eyes" because of the way he could roll them. Had I been looking for a nickname for him - unlikely because I was decades his junior in both age and length of service - it must surely have been Daddy Longlegs. He was well over 6 foot: hardly unusual in the police, of course, but it was all in his legs. He could sit comfortably in a panda car with his helmet on (a useful attribute in his case because after several bumps they permanently withdrew his driving permit and with it his flat cap, so he had to cadge sly lifts off the likes of me.)
At school one of the lads was good at football, the teachers called him Footbrain. In my student days Daddy Cool, Ramblin' Rose, and Rat Face were some of the lecturers, and among the students were Crud, Beethoven, Ted (because he was one), and Frank (short for Frankenstein). At work, the secretary was Miss Piggy, the Divisional Manager was Kermit, the sales manager was Fozzy, our engineering manager was Gonzo, and one of the draughtsmen was known as Pilot (he used to drive with all four wheels off the ground). Another manager was K-squared (his initials were KK), and there was a manager called Hobbs who I liked to call Russell, especially when he was letting off steam. Our Quality Manager used to be called Captain Kremmen because he was the spitting image, particularly in his mauve jacket, lime green shirt and lemon yellow tie.
I've always thought that David Blunkett ought to be called Andy. (Short for Andrex, as he gets dragged around by a labrador.)
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
Catfish Keith, Lazy Lester, Willie Big Eyes Smith, Peewee Ellis, Blind Willie johnson, Water Mellon Slim, Pinetop Perkins, Seasick Steve, Luke Long Gone Miles, Clarence Gatemouth Brown etc
Poker Players also
Bobby Baldwin The Owl Doyle Brunson Texas Dolly Johnny Chan The Orient Express Paul Clark Eskimo Antonio Esfandiari The Magician Chris Ferguson Jesus Barry Greenstein Robin Hood of Poker Dan Harrington Action Dan Phil Hellmuth The Poker Brat Randy Jenson The Dream Crusher Michael Mizrachi The Grinder Greg Raymer Fossilman David Ulliott Devilfish
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