Mando

When I lived in Melbourne I had personalised number plates (car tags). MANDO. It's one habit we Australians seem to have, when abbreviating someones name, to stick an O on the end. Thus, when abbreviating my name from Manderson it becomes Mando and was for quite some years. Of course, when I was a short trousered urchin, my friends of the time would tee hee as they abbreviated it to Mandy and I endured that particular cognomen for a number of years. Little bastards. We'll pass over any similarly juvenile 'humour' in which I might have participated!

Now I wouldn't want you to think *I* went out and got those number plates! Nope, they were my 40th birthday present from my second wife. I was, however, inordinately pleased at receiving them and would say, to any who cared to listen, that I 'used to think people with personalised plates were wankers and now I are one'. You can tell that my standards of humour haven't improved appreciably over the last half century!

A couple of years later I awoke one Saturday morning and went out to the car, to find someone had left a note under the wiper. Uh huh. Did this mean some neighbour objected to the way I parked? Nope, it was from one Campbell Manderson offering to buy my plates, at a premium, as he'd always wanted MANDO as his rego.

A pity then that he had left no phone number, no address and I had never heard of him! Might have been able to turn a tidy profit, especially as my second wife and I had parted ways by then.

I notice that the tradition continues; someone left a note on my previous post, Three dags[^] wanting to get a quote or two from yours truly about a post I wrote way back in 2006 about Adams Ribs[^], for possible inclusion in an article to be published in the Chicago Sun Times.

Such a pity then that the journalist posted as Anonymous and I have no way to reply save through these pages.

I'd love to be quoted. Contact me at rob (dot) manderson (at) gmail (dot) com.