I know companies get very protective of their ‘intellectual property’, aggressively, litigiously so. Try and open a shop called ‘Apple’ and see what happens. Even if you actually sell apples and nothing else. You’d have fifty-seven Madison Avenue suits on your doorstep with injunctions and court orders before you could say ‘we’re open’. All charging YOU $2000 an hour. Because branding is everything and companies who spend zillions a year building up that brand don’t want to see it borrowed/stolen/abused by an innocent would-be shopkeeper from Grimsby who might actually be named ‘Ronald Macdonald’.

But there are limits. Or there should be.

Rhianna is starting a new fashion line. Another one. She’s got loads already but ‘needs’ a new one. And she’s calling it Robyn. Because that’s her actual, parent-given, birth name. I never knew that. Never cared.

But Batman cared. He always did. So DC Comics are in a ‘trademark war’ with Rhi-Rhi because they ‘own’ Robin, the slightly effete, symbolically gay, something-of-a-loser, sidekick to the Caped Crusader. So you see the problem? Robin. Robyn. Oh no. And DC Comics have complained that ‘the name is identical/highly related’ and that this ‘is likely to cause confusion or deceive the public’.

So you can see the problem. Someone may go on to Rhianna’s ‘Robyn’ site because they’ve been kidnapped and strapped to a table above which is a massive circular saw, slowly descending towards their navel and instead of being saved from sure death they’ll instead receive a little black strappy dress with sequins in size 8. When they’re actually a size 6.

So to avoid this terrible ‘confusion’ they need to simply announce that Robin with an ‘i’ only deals in underwear worn OUTSIDE his clothes and Robyn with a ‘y’ doesn’t generally wear underwear at all and if she does she wears nothing else with it. I hope that avoids an expensive and unnecessary court saga.

Just as importantly; England won the cricket. Amazing. I always knew and had total confidence in them. Even on Thursday when we were shit and on Saturday when it had all gone to darkness. Then in steps Ben Stokes, the new, improved, tatooed version of Ian Botham and destroys the New Zealanders. A century in 85 minutes and three wickets in the second innings. Flintoff reborn. I love cricket.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx