A Cold Call from New Delhi

Only the other day someone cold-called me from New Delhi of all places (he was American judging by his accent). I don’t really know how he’d got hold of my name and phone number and cursed myself for not thinking to inquire. After I’d informed him he was correct in his assumption that he’d got Barry Whittingham on the end of his line, without so much as a by your leave he proceeded to drop the family name.

A Stockbroker?

And then he began trying to make me believe he was some kind of stockbroker, and that the instant friendship his insistant use of my first name seemed to imply obliged him to reveal that, if I invested a rather daunting amount in the shares of a certain company, some corporate miracle would take place within the next two months causing their value to increase by at least 100%.

The Opportunity of a Lifetime

Though I did manage to stay friendlily polite for the next few minutes or so, it was when he said: ‘But you’ve got to act now, Barry!’ that it all started to crumble. Strangely enough, what irritated me most was not so much the unlikely nature of what he was trying to get me to swallow as this dogged use of my Christian name. And when he added: ‘Barry, grab a pen and jot the name of this company down,’ my annoyance got the better of me, and I replied rather shirtily that I wasn’t going to grab anything. ‘But, Barry,’ he insisted, ‘this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Barry, this is something you just can’t afford to miss out on!’

A Politely Polite Gentleman

At this point I began to get downright hostile and proceeded to inform him that if he wanted our conversation to remain friendlily polite he would have to take ‘No’ for an answer. And it only took another, ‘But, Barry…,’ for me to lose most of my self control, and the little that remained of the politely polite gentleman I usually try to be only just managed a peremptory ‘Goodbye,’ before slamming the phone down.

Am I a Snob?

On reflection, I would have preferred being addressed by the occasional Mr Whittingham, rather than an overdose of Barry or even, for that matter, by nothing at all. And between you and me, I’ve got to admit that a deferential ‘Sir’ now and then wouldn’t have gone amiss. I must be a snob at heart.