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Bucky

(54,013 posts)
Mon May 4, 2020, 12:42 AM May 2020

Interesting twist in the news about Boris Johnson's recovery

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/boris-johnson-coronavirus-interview

Jenny McGee from New Zealand and Luis Pitarma from Portugal, he said, embodied the caring and sacrifice of National Health Service staff on the front lines of the pandemic, which has already killed 28,131 people in Britain.

Johnson’s close call is reflected in the name that he and fiancée Carrie Symonds gave to their newborn son. Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson was named after Johnson and Symonds’ grandfathers and after Dr. Nick Price and Dr. Nick Hart — the two doctors who saved the prime minister’s life.

Johnson’s actions since leaving the hospital suggest the NHS has a powerful new advocate as it seeks to reverse a decade of austerity that has left Britain’s doctors and nurses struggling to treat the flood of coronavirus patients with inadequate supplies of protective gear. Dozens of NHS workers have died in the outbreak.


Oh, look what conservative suddenly learned what compassion means. From the land of Ebenezer Scrooge. Fucking typical.
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TexasTowelie

(112,192 posts)
3. Yes, but they stuck their son with the first name of "Wilfred."
Mon May 4, 2020, 01:09 AM
May 2020

You can call me Will, you can call me Willy, you can call me Bill, you can call me Billy, you can me Fred, you can call me Freddy, but whatever the f**k you do, don't call me Wilfred.

No doubt that the kid will want to kick his parents' asses when he becomes an adult (and possibly as an adolescent).

bubbazero

(296 posts)
6. Reminds me of relative in Alabama
Mon May 4, 2020, 03:42 AM
May 2020

Parents named him Oliver, not exactly a good southern gentile name--even more fun--initials are OHM--kid gets last laugh though--He became an ELECTRICAL ENGINEER--

muriel_volestrangler

(101,316 posts)
8. The grandfather was born "Osman Wilfred Kemal"
Mon May 4, 2020, 05:13 AM
May 2020
Born Osman Wilfred Kemal in Bournemouth in 1909, Wilfred was the son of Ali Kemal, an interior minister of the Ottoman Empire and one-time newspaper editor.

As a journalist, Ali traveled extensively, enabling him to go to Switzerland where he met Winifred Brun. They married in London but Winifred died shortly after giving birth to Wilfred.

Wilfred’s birth certificate shows his grandmother, Margaret Johnson - known as Granny Johnson, was present at the birth and went on to raise him.

It was Granny Johnson who gave Wilfred her surname, having at one point applied to the Home Office for permission to do so, an application that was not needed because he was a British citizen despite his father being Turkish.

Even greater tragedy befell Wilfred when his father, having returned to Turkey, was kidnapped and killed in the 1922 Turkish War of Independence.

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/how-horrific-devon-plane-crash-4100825

TexasTowelie

(112,192 posts)
9. Isn't that lovely?
Mon May 4, 2020, 05:21 AM
May 2020

Wilfred and Winifred are both given names in the family.

Takes a person back to the 19th century. I probably shouldn't laugh because my father had unusual first and middle names. What made my father's name more unusual was that it was spelled with a silent "e" at the end.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,316 posts)
12. First names go through such fashion changes that there's no accounting for taste
Mon May 4, 2020, 07:36 AM
May 2020

Names that would have seem ridiculously old-fashioned when I was young (I'm in my 50s) are now in the most popular. Above, we see "Oliver, not exactly a good southern gentile name", but that was the most popular newborn boy's first name in England and Wales in 2018. "Noah" and "Leo" would have seemed very strange when I was a kid, but they're now in the top 10. Meanwhile, "Filip" is 3 times more common than "Philip", and "Maximus" was more popular than "Peter". And "Md" (I presume that comes from another language, though how you pronounce it with no vowels, I've no idea*) is more popular than "Steven" or "Ian".

Wilfred was the 146th most popular boy's first name in 2018 - while Nicholas was 157th. Lawrie was used 2 or fewer times as a first name in England or Wales in 2018, so it doesn't appear in the national list (though Laurie, how I'd usually spell it, was 749th). I don't think they keep records for second or later given names. Since they sometimes are surnames of ancestors (true for me), you get even more variation in those.

*I looked up "Md", and it seems it's a Bengali custom as a shortening of 'Mohammed', though they then don't use it as the name the boy is called by - it's an honorific.

Midnight Writer

(21,765 posts)
4. I'll believe it when I see it.
Mon May 4, 2020, 01:10 AM
May 2020

These conservatives can convince themselves that cutting pay for workers is good for them.

Ford_Prefect

(7,897 posts)
5. And in the same breath he'll sell the NHS to Trump and insist it was the only way to go.
Mon May 4, 2020, 02:51 AM
May 2020

Johnson is every bit the selfish prick as Trump is. He has no grasp of nor genuine sympathy for the lives working people lead. His entire cabinet is as bad and incompetent as Trump's. There is every reason to believe that he rode into office via the same Putin engineered methods and manipulations as Trump and is intended to accomplish the ends.

Ford_Prefect

(7,897 posts)
13. No question about that. But both are on a Russian enabled path to destabilize the West and diminish
Mon May 4, 2020, 09:36 AM
May 2020

legal and tax authority over Russian mafia assets invested outside of Russia. It is possibly the biggest money laundering scheme in history.

malaise

(268,998 posts)
10. Word is that he now believes there is something called
Mon May 4, 2020, 05:36 AM
May 2020

society. That is a significant departure from the Thatcher doctrine. Until they tear down her statue it's all talk.

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