From the earworms department?
The part of my brain that usually handles earworms has branched out and presented me with a name running persistently through my mind, the name of a person I don’t remember ever having come across in the flesh or in writing:
Betty Taminiau.
I googled it, of course, and found nothing that rang a bell. I did find Jan Taminiau the fashion designer, Bert or Bart Taminiau the field-hockey player, Renske Taminiau the singer, Aart Taminiau the artist, and several others (not to mention the 63 million occurrences of Betty). Until then, I hadn’t even been sure that the name actually existed.
In all its rarity it’s such a normal name that I can’t believe I haven’t read it somewhere and the earworms department has just found it in a cubby-hole and dished it up for me to look at. She sounds like someone who compiles cookery books, or someone from the Dutch WWII resistance, or even both: “the culinary writer Betty Taminiau, who saved twenty-three Jewish girls by hiding them in her cookery school.” I can see her now, still pert and lively at ninety-four; I can’t decide whether she has a tribe of great-grandchildren or only a morose black-and-white tomcat.
I do sometimes “get” characters like this, but they usually fit into something I’m already writing. Not this one. But if I don’t find a pre-existing Betty Taminiau, I’ll have to write something to make her exist; her name is much too splendid to let it go to waste.
Posted: 26-Apr-2010 | /words/writing | link | 0 comments



