Advertising’s full of silly names, we all know that. Take ‘Duckworth
Finn Grubb Waters’, for example. Or ‘Bartle Bogle Hegarty’.
But how about this? A character who goes by the name of Perri 6.
Perri, or 6, as journalists are meant to refer to him on second mention,
is a research director at the Centre Left thinktank, Demos, who spoke at
a recent House of Commons debate against the motion that ‘electronic
media are achieving more for global democracy than traditional media’.
We called him up to get an explanation for his curious moniker.
‘Is Mr, er, Perri there, please?’
He came to the phone. ‘Where do you get your name from?’ we snorted. ‘Is
it, like, for real?’
‘I thought using 1 would be arrogant,’ he said. ‘One of Prince’s backing
singers is a 6, too. So there’s singing 6s and thinking 6s. I just
happen to be a thinking 6.’
Mmmm. Crazy name, crazy guy.
