Poke me by the name I call myself Facebook

Have you seen Fahrid Abraham acting. Or have you heard of the exploits of John Hoover or read the books of Francis Fitzgerald. You may well have but until Ahmed Rushdie suddenly found his Facebook page blocked as it wasn't using his real name then there were issues. He raised the issue with them listing the three gents above as examples of why the policy didn't make sense*. No doubt Clive Lewis or Joanne Murray would have considering some witchcraft was afoot.

You see none of the above famous people use their first given name, just like our last Prime Minister James Brown. But the same applies to people who are not famous. My mother uses he second given name. Her uncle did with the family but not in the Forces so his funeral was an interesting combination of those who knew him as Cecil (family) and David almost everyone else. My brother is not alone in the Jonathan's I know who use Facebook as Johnny, indeed we very rarely refer to him as anything else, even on birthday and Christmas cards these days. My late father was Roy despite never having that name on his birth certificate as with many others who shorten or take a nick name.

Of course if Facebook insisted that our kings took their real names we would have ended up since Victoria with Albert I, George V, Edward VII, Albert II, Elizabeth II.

The policy that only real names should be used seems in the case of Rushdie to be as slap stick as an Arthur and Norvell scene. The award winning author, for it is he, first had his Facebook page blocked as they did not believe it was him. So he sent a photocopy of his passport picture and details to prove it was the real knight of the realm. Only for Facebook to reactivate the page as Ahmed Rushdie despite the world knowing him by his second given name, maybe they should have been in charge at the height of the fatwa against the writer.

All I can say it is a good job that Rushdie got this sorted out or else we'd have to send Jeremy Ashdown around to sort them out, he is a trained killer after all.

* For the record these gents are F. Murray Abraham, J. Edgar Hoover, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Salman Rushie. Plus C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling. The Prime Minister of course in J. Gordon Brown and Arthur and Norvell are better known as Stan and Ollie, Laurel and Hardy. Jeremy Ashdown of course is Paddy.