"And how are you spelling that name, sir?"

When I was of High School age, several of my friends worked at McDonalds. It had not yet acquired its current status as synonym for "not a real job," and my friends were misled by the fact that it was the only place that would hire them part time, and it paid them in real money. They thought that was pretty cool.

At first. It was great that you were actually employed. And having your buddies show up to order burgers and shakes was important. But after a while the novelty began to wear off, and they began to realize that what they were actually being paid to do was mind-numbingly, disablingly boring.

Night after night, shift after shift, hour after hour, they addressed themselves to gigantic trays of burgers on buns, to which they were to apply one squeeze of ketchup and one squeeze of mustard from the giant dispensers hanging from the ceiling. Three pickle slices. Teaspoon onions. Bun top. Move on to wrapping. Please, please, make it stop.

To stave off brain death, they would vary their burger ministrations from the Ray Kroc prescribed regulations. They might, for example, apply TWO squeezes of ketchup. Or put on 6 pickles. And sometimes, of course, they would go too far, and produce random burgers so pregnant with mustard that the purchasing patron would surely suffer.

It would appear that the National Westminster Bank has suffered from a similar mental malady on the part of at least one of its serfs. Chris Lancaster, 18, of Tiptree, Essex, England, routinely applied for a debit card. An absolute necessity in the twenty-first century.

Now: one can only imagine the pulverizing routine involved in looking at hundreds of such applications each day, and keying the information into NatWest's computer. And one can accordingly understand the impulse to divert oneself -- to defend continuing sanity, to prevent slipping off into an alternate universe -- by applying three squirts of ketchup to the occasional application.

This some anonymous NatWest backroomer did. Mr. Lancaster's card was delivered to him by post in due course, and he shortly thereafter set out to make use thereof. But upon examination, he discovered that there upon the face of his brand-new debit card, big as life, was his name, rendered thus:

"Mr C Lancaster Dick Head"

Sky News reports:

"I couldn't believe it," he said.

"When I got the card out I saw the name embossed on it. I was so embarrassed I put it back in my wallet.

"I know I've been overdrawn a few times but I've done nothing to deserve this.

"The bank said it must have been a worker with a grudge."

A NatWest spokesman said: "We have apologised unreservedly to Mr Lancaster.

"This is completely unacceptable and we have launched an investigation."

And well they should. Why would someone do such a thing?