Name-dropping sweetieA friend in New York, having read my piece on name-dropping, wrote to say an actor, phoning him, apologised for his rough voice by explaining he'd caught Pierce Brosnan's cold. There could be no end to such bragging, with all kinds of severe diseases becoming a source of pride because you caught it from someone famous. 'I'm HIV-positive, passed on to me by none other than....'
You might like to count the name-drops in this personal experience... I was once, decades ago, on a writing tour with the gritty Northern novelist Stan Barstow. He told me he'd recently had lunch with the then Director General of the BBC, Carleton-Greene. Greene, he said, had told him he'd had dinner with the famous conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Sir Malcolm had said to him, 'On Friday I'm having tea with the Queen Mother. She's a real sweetie, but my, what a name-dropper she is'.
You might like to count the name-drops in this personal experience... I was once, decades ago, on a writing tour with the gritty Northern novelist Stan Barstow. He told me he'd recently had lunch with the then Director General of the BBC, Carleton-Greene. Greene, he said, had told him he'd had dinner with the famous conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Sir Malcolm had said to him, 'On Friday I'm having tea with the Queen Mother. She's a real sweetie, but my, what a name-dropper she is'.
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