six degrees

Well, after yesterday’s freak out I’m feeling much calmer about the whole situation, having sought a bit of counsel here and there. I still haven’t heard from the company, so I’m just going to leave it and see what grows out of the festering mould that it is.

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In other news, using the “Find People” function on Twitter got me thinking. Thinking about my name, well my surname to be precise. I’ve never met another Rimmer, in terms of non-family member, name sharing type of person. So, out of curiosity I searched it.

This isn’t anything ground breaking. I’ve done it before on facebook, google and myspace. Although with each of those searches, I left it at that: gazing at the reams of profiles sufficed.

But with the open world that it is (twitter) I thought what’s to lose, so I’m attempting a worldwide Rimmer hunt. I’m going to try and find a Rimmer in as many countries as I can, follow them and then… well, then I’ll have spoken with another Rimmer. I suppose I could pass on key Rimmer information for non-UK Rimmers, for example, if they are confronted by someone making Red Dwarf cracks, I can explain or forewarn them. I could even provide a comeback (in that Ace Rimmer was awesome. That’s the kind of Rimmer I like to be…)

I can also ask whether they hate the innuendo that some people seem to love to attach to our name. If you giggled at the previous sentence SHAME ON YOU!

Mostly though, I think I’ll just be darned impressed. Impressed that the Rimmer name has travelled the globe. As far as I can tell the name originates in Liverpool UK. I know my family tree traces back to that area anyway.

So I’ll document it as and when I speak to them, and if they consent, I’ll add them to a map or something, then post that cartographical masterpiece as a page on here. I’ll title it something appropriate as well. “Veni, Vidi, Rimmer!” Or some such nonsense.

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*** As an update for any Rimmers who I have pointed here, I’m not asking for exact locations! Just your city, or even your hometown. Something to mark on the map so that people know that “thar be Rimmers”! ***

### The page is now live, sitting at the top of the page labelled “Planet Rimmer”###

wrath mongrer

I’m writing this in a slightly worried frame of mind, as I think the very fabric of this blog as we know it may well be at risk.

Doesn’t that sound dramatic?

It seems that out of sheer coincidence, I share my name / handle “willbaforce” with a company. I discovered this after I’d created this place and started writing. I searched the name on google and it came up as a page under construction. I thought “meh” it’s all the same, albeit very coincidental. So I left it at that, and carried on writing and tweeting my ideas and thoughts on life etc.

Well, it seems that said company is rather in anguish with this predicament, which I have discovered through the power of Google search and Twitter:

I’m not trying to get myself into trouble here, so I’m treading very carefully. I am however very worried. I want to keep the name on the site(s) where it exists, and seeing tweets like these stir the very fibres of my being:

Something is coming towards me, but I can’t tell whether it’s going to hurt. I’m fairly sure as I’m not a competing business, that there’s no brand confusion or “Passing Off” here – I’m not vying to support any business. Ever.

I’m just a happy little blogger, writing about things that are occurring within my vicinity or in my head.

I contacted the company today, to see if there is any room for discussion, comment or resolution. I mean, I’m open to a name share – I really don’t mind. I would prefer to keep it, but if there’s potential financial burdens heading my direction, I might have to change it. Which truly is a sad thing. It means I’d have to change names on twitter, wordpress, facebook (which sucks because on fb you can’t change it), steam and, in the words of a nationally famous music album, many many more.

Legally, I have no idea where I stand. I came up with the name entirely on my own, by manipulating the nickname a sibling chose to endow me with.

In fact, let me explain how I came to use the nickname willbaforce.

In the year of our Lord 2004 or thereabouts, my brother started University, in which he gained a lot of things, but notably, a penchant for dishing out nicknames. He returned at Christmas and started calling me by a variety of names, including “Force”, “Forculon”, “Willba”, “Willbatron”, “Willbaforce” and “Monkey boy”. The last one was generally whilst we fought. These nicknames came out of a jest he made upon discovering that I shared first names with the famous politician “William Wilberforce“, who was formerly native to Hull, a town not too far from our home of the time. So year upon year of being called “Willbaforce” (variant spellings* “Wilberforce”, “Willberforce”, “Wilbaforce”) I kind of adopted it as something I would respond to. I started to enjoy the name. Having then not fully decided on a handle for Counter-Strike: Source, I decided to opt for “willbaforce”, which I still use to this day. It then became my handle for practically all of my online presences. I login as “willbaforce” for practically everything now. When the chance to username my facebook came along, I of course HAD to choose “willbaforce”. In January, upon inspiration from a friend I started blogging, both for fun and to help me organise and reflect on my then very crappy situation of being depressed. Naturally I went for http://willbaforce.wordpress.com. It was for me just another name, that made me relatively anonymous to strangers but yet very much known to my friends. I combined that with an image of Cheburaska, a Russian children’s TV program character and started typing, thinking nothing of it all.

Same with Twitter. On March 18th, I started an account there purely with the intention of writing the thoughts and nuances that were “too small” to make it as a blog. Same name, same picture (I’m a great fan of continuity).

(As an aside, looking at the older tweets, MY GOD I WAS BORING. I actually related the fact I was watching the Gilmore Girls to the internet. Sad times.)

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So where does this leave me now? I haven’t got a clue. I’m sitting at my table shivering with the wrong kind of excitement, ie. fear, not knowing whether I’m to be hung by the castle wall, or dragged thirty kilometres by an enraged stallion. Clearly, my days “are numbered” as willbaforce. Or maybe not. I honestly have no idea

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*I chose the spelling “willbaforce” with two Ls for the simple reason that my first name is Will with two Ls. That way my anonymous name was secretly and actually part of my known alias.