Dan Morris: Money for honey and names that are funny

A colleague of incredibly lethal cunning anointed me with this particular title this week, and it got me thinking about the more permanent pet designations that are often bestowed on people.

Nicknames are a funny old thing. Ask about their origin and most people won’t have a clue (assuming said nickname isn’t just a ‘surname-plus-Y’ cop-out, anyway).

Occasionally you may think the root is obvious, as I did with a chap affectionately known as ‘Drummer Barry’. I was left foiled in my assumption however when it turned out Barry was less of a Phil Collins wannabe and more of a renowned chicken leg obsessive.

Thinking about most of the lads I’ve knocked about with over the years, my circle of mates has often resembled Smithy’s in Gavin and Stacey.

To illustrate, a sample of my pals and associates would include Greb, Fella, Sheephead Steve, Eggy Whopper, Boof, Coney, King Deeb, Duffman, Frodo, Beast and Dickie Flowers.

We’re all in our 30s/40s now, and these monikers have stuck for so long that they are surely here to stay. But I'll be damned if I can trace the genesis of half of them.

Nicknames can, of course, have their root in absolutely anything – from physical characteristics, to hobbies and, often as not, an embarrassing social faux pas. The only universal rule when it comes to nicknames is that, under no circumstances, can you make up your own.

Probably for the best. If we were all called Handsome McWell-Hung, nothing would ever get done.

I had a nickname in high school that stuck with me all the way through, yet this was one of the more boring ‘surname rhyme’ types. My current nickname, ‘Mozz’, is better, but still quite a simple effort, purely employed due to the fact that my social circle includes a veritable cavalcade of Dans, and we need to differentiate.

As a side point, I would very much like to campaign for ‘cavalcade’ to be made the official collective noun for Dans. If any other Dans would like to support this venture, you can e-mail me at d.morris@handsomemcwellhung.com.

My adult nickname has, however, inspired what I hope to one day become a lovely little retirement hobby. For no reason I can really pinpoint, I’ve long had a fascination with the idea of keeping bees. I suppose (aside from the inevitable stings) it just looks like a very relaxing yet rewarding pursuit.

If I ever make this happen, I’d quite like to bottle and sell my own honey, which (in a bit of swashbuckling onomatopoeic genius) I’m going to call ‘Mozzzzzzzzzz’. If the bees can say it, it’ll be made with love. And there might be the slogan.

Retirement will be a long way off; I’m certainly not planning on hanging up my pen any time soon. Yet it is nice to look forward to something that will get me outdoors everyday other than the lure of breaking my back in a kayak (my retirement, I hope, will be a cloak of many colours).

In thinking about my future after work, though, I must remind myself of something I swore a couple of years ago: never to wait until I’m old to live.

My mother never got to enjoy her retirement, being diagnosed with cancer shortly before she was due to say goodbye to the working world. Watching an excited countdown on her kitchen calendar be replaced with a litany of chemotherapy sessions was heart-breaking, and I swore there and then that if there was something I really wanted to do, I would try my best not to wait too long to do it.

It’s a cliche, but we never really know what tomorrow will bring, so it’s important to make today count.

With that, I’m now calling out to all beekeepers, unicycle riders, sword swallowers and fire eaters: teach me, and teach me soon. 

My genuine e-mail address is daniel.morris@jpress.co.uk. If you’ve got an interesting hobby or talent that you’d like to see me make a prize prat of myself in attempting, give me a holler.

Everybody dies; a lot of people never really live, and this poor man’s Ed Davey is ready to party.