I’ll be the judge of that
Judges may only work from ten to two with a break for a lunchtime visit to an S&M parlour, but they get a lot done. Or rather, their predecessors did. The law is built on precedent. A judge’s job is to flick through one of the books you always see behind lawyers until he finds a case roughly similar to the one being tried, then copy the judgement. Hey presto! Not only is the establishment maintained but he can knock off early and be first in line at the canteen and/or flagetoruium.
I don’t think that a lot of judicial insight was required last week in New Zealand when a judge ruled that a young girl named ‘Talula does the Hula from Hawaii’ could change her name. He probably just looked up the case law on ‘stupid names’ and the book fell open at the most popular ruling, ‘change the name, stone the parents to death’.
No matter the rights and wrongs of the ruling and how it affected the rest of the Does-The-Hula-From-Hawaii family, there’s no question that Talula is a silly name and that it’s right to change it, and I hope that Kate Does The Hula From Hawaii is happy with her new name.
The judge considered that one of the reasons for allowing the change in name was that children taunt and can be cruel. This must be the same judge that made the landmark ‘bears and woods’ ruling in 1996. But I think he’s missing the point. Of course children taunt other children, but that’s not because the victim has a silly name, it’s because that children are little sods.
Children do not need a reason to poke fun at another child. They can simply make a reason up. These are people who live in the land of imagination, it doesn’t take much for them to take one look at a kid, decide his hair is cut by gypsies and start the chant of ‘pikey-top’. This they then escalate to the dreaded rhyme, such as ‘pikey top, lives in a bog in a bog, stinks of poo and eats hedgehog’.
Unhappily the world of education is basically just one long opportunity to set yourself for a career as taunt-fodder and if, by some miracle, you manage to go through school without embarrassing yourself don’t worry, your family are always there to take up the slack.
Almost everyone gets teased at school. You may be kid normal for almost the entirety of your education but everyone will remember that time in gym where, despite not feeling too good since lunch, you were keen to show off your handstanding skills, farted and accidentally defecated appalling steaming dihorrea all down your back.
After enduring a few months of humiliation, the circus moves on, possibly to the kid who ate a whole box of crayons for a bet in art class and, after throwing up onto a canvas, was known as ‘Rolf’ for the rest of term.
Rest assured though, your torture is somebody else’s nostalgia. Logging onto Friends Reunited for the first time, look at the message board for your primary school and see for yourself the posting: ‘whatever happened to poo nape?’ (Hint, don’t e mail that person asking if they are single).
So kids can be cruel, in the sense of a group of pre-adolescent girls chanting ‘Debby has nits’ at some poor unfortunate in the corner of the school playground? But let’s not forget that adults can be cruel too. Deciding to felt tip ‘special needs’ on a kids locker can be cruel, but it’s hardly making a pyramid of naked prisoners and then taking a photograph of yourself giving the thumbs up in front of them, is it? I somehow doubt that the crew-cutted torturers at Guantanemo look in at their orange boiler suited victims and have a conversation along the lines of ‘okay, so we’ve tried electrodes on the goolies, sensory depravation and wake-boarding or whatever it’s called and he still insists he’s actually just a school kid from Darlington who was on an exchange visit to Afghanastan. I’ve got a great idea, why don’t we chant ‘spaz’ at him until he starts crying’.
I don’t think that a lot of judicial insight was required last week in New Zealand when a judge ruled that a young girl named ‘Talula does the Hula from Hawaii’ could change her name. He probably just looked up the case law on ‘stupid names’ and the book fell open at the most popular ruling, ‘change the name, stone the parents to death’.
No matter the rights and wrongs of the ruling and how it affected the rest of the Does-The-Hula-From-Hawaii family, there’s no question that Talula is a silly name and that it’s right to change it, and I hope that Kate Does The Hula From Hawaii is happy with her new name.
The judge considered that one of the reasons for allowing the change in name was that children taunt and can be cruel. This must be the same judge that made the landmark ‘bears and woods’ ruling in 1996. But I think he’s missing the point. Of course children taunt other children, but that’s not because the victim has a silly name, it’s because that children are little sods.
Children do not need a reason to poke fun at another child. They can simply make a reason up. These are people who live in the land of imagination, it doesn’t take much for them to take one look at a kid, decide his hair is cut by gypsies and start the chant of ‘pikey-top’. This they then escalate to the dreaded rhyme, such as ‘pikey top, lives in a bog in a bog, stinks of poo and eats hedgehog’.
Unhappily the world of education is basically just one long opportunity to set yourself for a career as taunt-fodder and if, by some miracle, you manage to go through school without embarrassing yourself don’t worry, your family are always there to take up the slack.
Almost everyone gets teased at school. You may be kid normal for almost the entirety of your education but everyone will remember that time in gym where, despite not feeling too good since lunch, you were keen to show off your handstanding skills, farted and accidentally defecated appalling steaming dihorrea all down your back.
After enduring a few months of humiliation, the circus moves on, possibly to the kid who ate a whole box of crayons for a bet in art class and, after throwing up onto a canvas, was known as ‘Rolf’ for the rest of term.
Rest assured though, your torture is somebody else’s nostalgia. Logging onto Friends Reunited for the first time, look at the message board for your primary school and see for yourself the posting: ‘whatever happened to poo nape?’ (Hint, don’t e mail that person asking if they are single).
So kids can be cruel, in the sense of a group of pre-adolescent girls chanting ‘Debby has nits’ at some poor unfortunate in the corner of the school playground? But let’s not forget that adults can be cruel too. Deciding to felt tip ‘special needs’ on a kids locker can be cruel, but it’s hardly making a pyramid of naked prisoners and then taking a photograph of yourself giving the thumbs up in front of them, is it? I somehow doubt that the crew-cutted torturers at Guantanemo look in at their orange boiler suited victims and have a conversation along the lines of ‘okay, so we’ve tried electrodes on the goolies, sensory depravation and wake-boarding or whatever it’s called and he still insists he’s actually just a school kid from Darlington who was on an exchange visit to Afghanastan. I’ve got a great idea, why don’t we chant ‘spaz’ at him until he starts crying’.
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