Namedropping

Once again, for lack of other interesting news in the life of Ricardipus, I throw out a totally unrelated subject for your interest/apathy/hostile reaction. Many of you have been asking: "Why the name 'Ricardipus'?"

[Editorial note: NOBODY has actually been asking this. It's a literary device to get me out of having nothing useful to say today. Unlike every other day, of course.]

I could have used the first letter of my first name, like Zoe uses Zed (U.S. based readers: much of the rest of the world calls the letter Z 'zed', not 'zee' - now you know) , but "ARRRR" is hardly very catchy, unless it's Talk Like A Pirate Day, the last instance of which, come to think of it, was also the 650th anniversary of the Battle of Poitiers. Dawn posts as 'Dawn', which is admittedly pretty tricky. I dare you to suggest that she do otherwise. Scaryduck chose his name for some complicated reason that you'll have to ask him to explain. Rik is Rik because Rik is Rik. QED.

So: 'Ricardipus', because:

1) It was the name of a Roman noble who was famous for mercilessly blogging (oops, I mean "flogging") his servants. [Note: this is almost certainly untrue.]

2) I was going to call the blog 'My Wife's Husband is a Twat', but it seemed a bit close to something that had been taken already.

3) 'Ricardipus' is the genus name of a rare flowering plant, Ricardipus mimulosa, which grows exclusively on the Oak Ridges Moraine, not a stone's throw from my home. [Note: this is also almost certainly untrue.]

4) I couldn't think of anything else.

5) I have previously been referred to as being a bit of a goof, and 'Ricardipus' is, you must admit, a pretty goofy handle.

or,

6) There is absolutely no good reason at all.

That should be an adequately unsatisfying answer, I think, for the two or three of you who asked.

Remember: once you name a thing, you can control it. Allegedly.