Presidents, Geese, and Nicknames

On Tuesday, as George W. Bush made his way to Texas and hunting pastures new, it's good to know that the new President was tucking into pheasant and duck, part of his first meal since taking office. Goose was missing from the menu, as it seems that the birds destined for the Presidential table were prematurely cooked after being sucked into the engines of Airbus A320 on the previous Thursday.   

The Captain of the plane has rightly been praised for his skill and enterprise in bringing it down safely on the Hudson River, with no loss of life involved. Something to be expected, I guess, from a guy whose IQ was deemed high enough for him to join Mensa International at the age of 12, and who graduated from Denison High School, Texas, near the top of his class of about 350.

His name intrigues me -- it is one of those with numbers included, which is a very American thing; Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III, presumably to distinguish him from older members of the clan with the same name. I think it would have been an excellent idea in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland over the past couple of centuries, as there were so many members of each family with the same moniker. Instead of using that simple system of numbers, and sounding rather grand, we invented nicknames.