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Old January 7th 21, 01:43 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london
Mike Humphrey[_2_] Mike Humphrey[_2_] is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Jan 2021
Posts: 4
Default Thameslink returns to the Tube Map

On Thu, 07 Jan 2021 10:13:59 +0000, Sam Wilson wrote:
Mike Humphrey wrote:
On Wed, 06 Jan 2021 09:31:21 +0000, Sam Wilson wrote:
On of the UoEd’s schools used to use login names based on initials but
they were at least 3 characters long. People without a middle name
got an “x” inserted, so S.... W.... (not me) was “sxw”. It looked
odd when you first saw one - “oh, I didn’t know Steve’s middle name
was Xavier...”


According to DVLA, my middle initial is "9". Yes, the number nine.
Driver numbers are based on your surname plus first and middle
initials, but if you don't have a middle name you get a "9" instead.


Does your driver number end x99xx, where x is a letter? I have two
middle names and thus three initials but my driver number ends with
ii9xx where ii are my first two initials and xx are apparently random
letters.


Yes - M99xx. There seems to be some disagreement over what the second 9
means but Wikipedia says that it is to distinguish otherwise-identical
numbers. It starts at 9 and then counts down if needed to avoid a
duplicate number. I guess it's only likely to happen if twins have the
same first initial, or an unlikely coincidence.


Mike