Narcissus unbound

For ages, the ears of yours truly have been pummelled with ditties such as "There's a hole in the bucket dear" ? you guessed it right. And "I am Henry the Eighth I Am". Oh the jingles of yore! The rhythm beats inside, like a second heart.

What's in a name, asked the Bard of Avon once upon a time. Just sweetness, as in a rose? Or is there more to it?

At the risk of self-promotion, and sounding too pompous in the bargain, does sweetness apply to the first name of yours truly, too?

The sculptor Henry Moore once said: "The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your whole life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life." And the most important thing is it must be something you cannot possibly do!

And what can yours truly possibly not do? Well, bask in narcissism.

And what would one actually dream of doing? Well, bask in narcissism.

If one were to ferret out all the names from the pages of history and the contemporary that began with my first name, there would be a raft of luminaries.

Famous Henrys

There is Henry James, the novelist; Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet; Henry Ford, the carmaker and philanthropist; Henry Luce, co-founder of Time magazine (whom the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Donald Murray says was like "a terrier with his questions"); Henry Blofeld, the cricket commentator, he of the earring fame; Henry David Thoreau; Joseph Henry, the famed US physicist, after whom the SI unit of electrical inductance, henry, is named; Henry Mancini, he of the Pink Panther signature tune fame (who can forget the bumbling but amusing Peter Sellers?); Henry Fowler, he of Modern English Usage fame; Henry Fonda the actor; Henry Cooper, Henry Jackson, Henry Lawson (the Australian poet), O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), John Henry Faulk (the radio broadcaster and storyteller) ?.

Then there are Henrik Ibsen, Enrique Iglesias, Henri Matisse (or Leconte), the writer Henri Charriere (he of Papillon fame) all with first names which serve as the non-English equivalent of Henry. Perhaps, one would be chuffed at being in such celebrated company.

This is not to be confused with hooray henry time to descend to the bathos? an upper crust young man who behaves in a loutish way.

Do you remember what Dr Jekyll's first name is? (One should perhaps abstain from being associated with such a character?) That also brings to mind Henry the Eighth's reputation ? could I afford to be in such fellowship?

Or would it better to be associated with moviedom characters, like one I just mentioned before, (the Fonda I mean), or even Henry Higgins (a la Rex Harrison). Maybe after all, there is a ring of sweetness to it the basis of Higgins' behaviour.