Our receptionist at work is a lady called Bern. She’s a very nice lady but for some reason I can’t call her by her name. Every morning when I get to work she’ll say “hello Mark” and I’ll reply with a strangers reply of “good morning”. It makes me feel a bit rude but it’s only because she has an odd name, my brain just refuses to register it. I’ve heard of a Fern but never a Bern and it’s something I really need to work on.

When I think about it I don’t really call many people by name. If somebody’s name has too many syllables then I just won’t bother, and living in a multicultural city like London means I bump into quite a few of them. I know it’s controversial, but if the government could force all Somalian immigrants to change all their names to Dave then my life would be alot easier.

But one step at a time I guess.  For now I will have to get over my phobia of the word Bern, and then we’ll go from there.