Anne

Buying yellow flowers for a friend's birthday, the girl in the cafe-cum-flower shop has a feather hanging from one ear.  She finds me a brown paper bag to carry my purchase.

'I don't have one', she says when I explain my resolution.  She turns to her colleague with red hair and a severe fringe.  'What's your middle name?' she asks for me.  The red-haired girl, making a cappuccino, has a mildly disapproving look but gives an answer.

Alan

A neighbour knocks on my door with a chartered surveyor in tow.  He hands me his card.  'You want to know who's poking round', he says.  He is bald with a grey moustache and an air of experience.  Together they investigate the layout of my flat.  'It's not going to be a problem', he says with authority.

I use the opportunity to ask about fixing a bookshelf to a stud wall.  He explains in detail about batterns and butterfly screws.  He draws a diagram.

Back at the door I ask my question.  A flicker of doubt crosses his face before a conclusive answer.

Mendes

As on 3rd February, I am again accosted to be told about the plight of the Siberian tiger.  The young girl in the orange t-shirt speaks fast and with purpose.  'Why do you think they're dying out?', she asks.  'They're being shot?' I suggest.  'Exactly', she replies. 

'All it takes is a text message', she says putting a number in front of my face but my bus arrives.  'I'm sorry', I say, 'I have to catch my bus'.

I do find time to quickly ask my question.  It is Portuguese.

Indiscretion

The self-proclaimed middle name of one of Hollywood's top female script writers who died today.  She knew the identity of "Deep Throat", source of the Watergate scandal, years before it was revealed to the world and 'dealt with the situation by telling pretty much anyone who asked me, including total strangers'.  She also claimed to be the only young woman who worked as an intern in Kennedy's White House whom the President did not make a pass at because he 'somehow sensed that discretion was not my middle name'.

About life she said she would not miss, amongst other things, 'E-mail', 'Bras' and 'The sound of the vacuum cleaner', but that she would miss 'Waffles', 'The concept of waffles' and 'Fireworks'.

'Be the heroine of your life, not the victim', she said.  I'm going to try.

Catherine

After a selectly attended university musical society concert, a small girl in a blue dress has made vegan and gluten-free chocolate buns.  She has red hair in a plait and her guitar (on which she had earlier played Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah) has a leopard print sash chord.

I take a bun and explain my resolution.  'Oh my god, yeh', she says.  Her accent is northern.  She tells me her middle name and explains that she used banana as an egg substitute.  The result is surprisingly tasty.

Alice

On the top floor of a bookshop the book I have requested in on the system but not on the shelf.

'This is really going to annoy me now', says the shop assistant when I tell her not to worry.  She has a nose-stud and bronze earrings in the shape of eagles.  Under her black uniform shirt she is wearing a green t-shirt.  'Perhaps someone put it in the Biography section'.  She looks to no avail.  'Usually they turn up', she says and goes back to scan the Poetry again.  By now I have found something else that I am taken by.  'Here it is', she says holding it aloft, 'I knew it would be here somewhere'.  Because I have a book token, I decide to buy both.

'My sister chose it for me', she explains when I ask my question, 'she's five years older than me'.  she tells me that she was named after Alice in Wonderland.  'It was her favourite book at the time', she says.

(Lewis Carroll wrote an acrostic poem for the seven-and-a-half year-old who inspired the Wonderland on a boat-trip down the Isis near Oxford.  It appears at the end of Alice Through the Looking Glass and in it is hidden another middle name... 

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July–

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear–

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream–
Lingering in the golden gleam–
Life, what is it but a dream?)

John

In the garden at a party for a family wedding, I meet the young son of my aunt's sister.  He has been energetically hula-hooping on the lawn for much of the afternoon.  I ask my question and if there is any particular reason for the answer.  'Not really', he says.  'It's your father's middle name', corrects his mother.