Just when we thought that the world’s woes couldn’t get much worse, along comes a problem to dwarf global poverty, conflict in the Middle East and even Tottenham’s inability to keep a clean sheet. According to The Times, new rock bands are running out of names to call themselves. Or rather, names that don’t make their members feel like complete prats.

Case in point? An ensemble called Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong is getting serious airplay on the more modish radio stations. So is one called I Was A Cub Scout – which is not to be confused with Scouting for Girls, another recently acclaimed popular combo. If names like that don’t constitute a serious cultural crisis, I don’t know what does.

Doubtless a certain amount of postmodern teenage irony is embedded within these titles. Doubtless, too, rock-band names such as the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd that seem to have been around for ever (chiefly because they have been) also struck the outside world as remarkably daft when they were first uttered. Even so, you can’t help thinking that Jing Jang Jong and I Was A Cub Scout represent the very last scrapings of an exhausted barrel.

I speak with unexpected authority on this subject, because – by one of those spooky coincidences that help me to crank out this column week after week – my older son’s punk-rock band has also been undergoing a crisis of collective identity during these past few months. Long-suffering readers may recall that this ebullient trio has hitherto plied its noisy trade – pounding a remorseless barrage of anguished decibels into grungy pubs the length and breadth of North London – under the distinctive and (I have long feared) entirely apt name of Wasted Days. But as “the Wasteds” prepare to release their long-awaited first album, they have been beset by gnawing anxieties about whether this pithy moniker properly captures the true depth of their musical aspirations and socio-political beliefs.

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Since they have been knocking around together since their mid-teens, I suggested that they should upgrade the name to Wasted Years – with an option on Wasted Decades if they are still playing the Purple Turtle in Camden Town when they all hit 40. For some reason this idea was coolly received. Instead, after months of strenuous mental gymnastics that have been painful to behold, the erstwhile Wasteds are now contemplating changing their name to . . . wait for it, Turn Away December. This, I am reliably informed, evokes feelings of “New Year resolutions” and “making a fresh start”.

“At first it was going to be Turn Over December, like turning over a new leaf,” my son adds. “But that sounded too much like ‘turnover’, and I didn’t want to be mistaken for a pastry.”

A very real danger, I had to agree. But even so . . . Turn Away December? Proud and supportive parent though I am, I have difficulty in imagining that name picked out in 30ft-high neon lights over Madison Square Garden. But I suppose it could be worse. Doesn’t the singer Norah Jones have a band called The Little Willies? What a slur on its male members (as it were). On the whole, I think it’s probably better to be mistaken for a pastry.

Of course, rock musicians are not the only entertainers who think that, if they can only come up with the right name, fame and fortune will inevitably follow. It’s a common belief throughout the arts world. And there are certainly famous precedents. Would Leopold Stokowski have become one of America’s most celebrated orchestral conductors (and shaken hands with Mickey Mouse in Fantasia) if he had stuck with his original name: plain Leonard Stokes from London? Would those dancing dames, Ninette de Valois and Margot Fonteyn, have twirled to the top of the snooty ballet world if they hadn’t dumped their real names (Edris Stannus and Peggy Hookham respectively) for cooked-up monikers that exuded Gallic sophistication? And would hunky John Wayne ever have made his mark in macho movies about the Wild West if he had insisted on everyone calling him Marion – the name sadistically inflicted on the poor lad by his Ma and Pa? I think not.

Nor is naming-angst confined to showbiz. Every mother knows that childbirth is a stroll in the park compared with the trauma of deciding what to call the puking pink blob that discloses absolutely no clue as to its future personality, appearance or talents. No wonder that, in the world’s less imaginative families, the father simply declares: “Hell, woman, George Bush was a good enough name for me, so it can damn well do for the nipper too.”

It’s just the same in the corporate world. Do you remember that ghastly period when British companies starting ditching names that actually told you what their line of business was, in favour of cod-Latin nonsenses such as Corus, Consignia and Diageo? Except, of course, for the geniuses at PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting. Tiring of that prodigious mouthful (who can blame them?) they spent an astonishing £75 million rebranding their company under the name Monday. That’s right, Monday – the dreariest day of the week. And accountants still wonder why everyone thinks they are boring. The name-change lasted all of 51 days, incidentally.

But corporate brands come and go. A punk band’s moniker is for life. Except in the case of Wasted Days, obviously. In the best traditions of shameless journalistic nepotism, I should at this point be urging you to go out and buy my son’s new album. But I can’t, for the simple reason that this, too, is as yet unnamed. And, given the band’s current rate of nomenclaturial invention, it is likely to remain so for years to come. MI5 couldn’t have devised a better-kept secret.

Joe Lean & The Jing Jang Jong is starting to sound like a brilliant inspiration.

Ageist taunts shame us all

Perhaps it’s because I am creeping towards what may charitably be called the golden autumn of my youth, but I now get extremely irked by ageist taunts. Why can’t we British treat our grannies with the respect that senior citizens receive in even the poorest parts of Eastern Europe? It’s a shameful blot on our record as a civilised country.

Bus companies are the latest organisations to make my blood boil. The issue is the Freedom Pass that allows the over60s to travel free. From April the scheme will be extended to allow them to travel all over the country, not just in the area where they live. The bus companies have gone bananas about this. So many old people will be “going on jaunts on the bus”, they claim ludicrously, that paying punters won’t be able to board. The local authorities are frankly no better, stirring up fears of large hikes in council tax to fund these “jaunts”. It seems not to have occurred to anyone that “jaunts” might keep older people healthier and happier, and thus less in need of social services or medical care.

What a disgrace. As a nation we agreed to give this tiny perk to pensioners – who, let’s not forget, have paid 40 years of taxes to support others’ needs. Instead of whingeing about the cost and making older people feel even more unwanted than they already do, we should joyfully pick up the tab. God knows, we don’t do much else for the elderly.

Born to be Bond

Am I alone in thinking that Robert Vassall, the youth worker who conned the Royal Navy into providing a free Cornish holiday for 22 unemployed youngsters from Wolverhampton (he said they were a distinguished football team, and the Navy believed him), should be snapped up by the Ministry of Defence after he’s finished doing his 120 hours’ community service? Quick wits, brazen deceit, low cunning, breathtaking cheek: the guy’s born to be 007.

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