Andy Mycock has been teased for his name for most of his life, an experience which must have been hard. Luckily he lives near Manchester, where they call everyone cock anyway.
Andy Mycock has been given a hard time for his unusual surname for most of his adult life – but jokes he got off lightly compared to his brother Paul. He gave up his dreams of being a teacher after youngsters got a rise out of his name.
Instead he took up a career as an academic and is now a noted political scientist, but even among boffins, he faces stiff issues. Dr Mycock, as he is officially known, said his name badge is often misprinted as “MyCock” or “My Cock” at conferences.
And he joked: “My students have taken delight in being lectured by Mycock, and shown great creativity in citing my research in their essays.”
Compared to other family members such as mum Pat – now divorced and with a different name – and brother Paul Mycock, Andy feels he has had the better end of the stick.
But he says it’s not that unusual in his hometown in Derbyshire, and you will find Mycock all over Buxton, where a number of locals are distant relatives of Solomon Mycock, a prominent farmer and publican from the 19th century.
And his long-time girlfriend Jenny Coates made it clear early on in their relationship that if they ever got married, she would neither take his surname nor go double-barrelled.
Andy, who has developed a stand-up comedy show about his surname, will feature in a new documentary about his name this weekend.
His Radio 4 show, Andy Mycock: Named, Unashamed, airs on Sunday and features his old mates recalling a long drive up to Scotland cracking jokes about Andy’s name the whole way.
One pal tells Andy: “I think I recognised that you stopped enjoying it, it just wasn’t funny any more.” But another quips “What, stopped enjoying Mycock?”
Another of his mates says he has now reclaimed his name by turning it into a comedy routine, telling him: “You’ve taken ownership, haven’t you? And therefore it’s lost its power, it’s lost its teeth, it’s lost its intensity.” Another jokes: “It’s gone flaccid, really.”
But his hilarious surname does come with real-life drawbacks. He told the Telegraph: “We live in a world of spam filters and profanity filters. I and others with sexualised names face what they call the ‘Scunthorpe problem’.”
In his documentary, he interviews a John Smith and a Dr Cock, who happens to be a lesbian and tells Andy she has found her name “a wonderful icebreaker”. She said: “Who remembers the Smiths and Joneses they meet?”
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