Article: Is it some sort of identity crisis? Why else would a grown man want to festoon his person with the alphabet?

Melanie Eastwick had nametapes in her knickers. No one knew why. Quite what picture her mother had formed of the rough and tumble of kindergarten life was never spelled out but, whatever happened, Deirdre was prepared. The same mystery surrounds the monogramming habit. What do people imagine is going to happen to their pillow cases? Even for the tiny handful of starch queens who send their laundry out, the monogram serves no practical function: laundries mark dirty linen with their own system of cabalistic signs: your button-downs are not being sorted by the any-three-initials you paid pounds 3.50 to have stitched on to the breast pocket.

He climbs out of his BMW (numberplate ESN 1) ...

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