chaplin

Wednesday, March 05, 2014

There's nobody in the magazine business called Janet or John anymore

Went to the PPA's New Talent Awards, which recognises young people working in the magazine business. Most of them would have been under thirty. Among the winners were: Lucy, Oliver, Farrah, Ciaran, Lizzie, Heather, James, Gemma. Sophie, Eva, Kirsty, Laura, Ellie and Andy. When I joined the business Janets and Johns were doing well. They must have slipped behind.

5 comments:

  1. When you joined the magazine business, it was less middle class than being a doctor. Now, bizarrely, it is more middle class than being a doctor.

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  2. I think that's true but it would be a mistake to assume that everyone with a genteel-sounding name comes from a genteel background. The youth of today are in every respect a lot more polished than my generation. They were named by parents who wished to project some of that polish.

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  3. my class at school was full of Susans, Lindas and Christines. Boys were Terry, Roger and Alan. The odd Derek and Bernard. Names that barely exist today

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  4. Surely it's the Biblical names that have gone out of fashion? None of my friends' parents were particularly religious, but most of them had names out of the Bible: Andrew, John, Simon, James, David ...

    We now live in a Godless universe and the kids' names reflect that.

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  5. Godless, eh, Andrew? Isn't the UK's most popular boy's name Muhammad? Something like that anyway.

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