My successor at work has started, and he's been living in Los Angeles, USA, for seven years. He told me a story about moving into a "bad neighbourhood".

As one of his friends and his self were moving boxes containing his stuff from a van into his apartment, his friend shouted his nickname as he was about to drop a box. "Hey, Sepi! Come here and help me out!"

Unfortunately, a neighbour heard this, pulled a gun to the guy's head and said "Who are you calling a clown?"

Now. This might seem a tad weird - and it still will, post-clarification - but the thing is, in Spanish, "Sepi" is slang for Bozo the Clown. The neighbour spoke Spanish, and of course your first reaction is "when called a clown, pull gun".

My successor cooled the situation and had to show his ID to prove his first name could potentially be rendered into "Sepi".

After that incident, he became good friends with his neighbour, who actually started to protect him. "Nobody messes with Sepi!"

All's well that ends well. That story reminds me a bit of Ice Cube's "A Gangsta's Fairytale".