Too many people fail to understand the practice of nicknaming. Maybe it is a particularly middle, upper-middle and upper class English thing. Indeed it may also be rather more a chaps' thing. Consider Sheridan's "School for Scandal".


The joke thing actually is the other way round - monks, closed community - jokes given numbers because so often heard. Incomer gives a new number - monks fall about laughing. Explanation "We haven't heard that one before". Women and jokes, eh?

Racism? Most of those frequently accused of racism here do genuinely appear to be racist. Of course, there are some reverse racists too.