13 November 2007


Funny story

A couple of nights ago, my wife told me she was in the process of buying the Pol Pots album from iTunes. The Pol Pots? I thought. What kind of sick band name is that?

"That's like calling your band The Hitlers!" I said. She looked at me blankly.

Then she explained, quite patiently, that she was talking about the new album by Paul Potts, the British mobile phone salesman–turned–opera singer.


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Still, I wouldn't like to have "Paul Pott" as a name, or, by the way, "Hittleir" either, or "Stallyn" or anything like any dictator's name, even with a different spelling !

And what about the crazy idea of calling your son "Paul" when your last name is "Pott" !? Or maybe the man is 60 years old so it was just bad luck.

Anyway, he could use his second name, or whatever.
Reminds me of a contest a radio station came up with back in the late 70's/early 80's for listeners to come up with the fictional punk band name in the poorest taste. The winner was "Adolph Hitler and the Casuals."
Paul Potts (with the s) was born in 1970, several years before anyone had heard of the Khmer Rouge or Pol Pot. And in English, there are only a few spoken contexts where Paul Potts could be confused with Pol Pot; mine was one of them.