7 Reasons to Run Away and Change Your Name

Posted on November 25, 2009 in Posts | 4 comments

1.  The CIA. You are the co-author of a British-based humour website which gets an alarming number of page hits from readers in Arlington, Virginia (the home of the CIA).  This scares you.

2.  A Fable. Your name is Alan Lupus.  You live in a small, unremarkable seaside town in a semi-detached house on the cliff-top.  You have formerly had many close friends and been on good terms with your neighbours.  For the last three weeks, however, you have been plagued by a recurring vision that seems to you to be completely real.  You have seen it several times, all at different times of day.  You look out from your living room window and see that a large, heavy buoy has broken free from its chains near the harbour entrance and, floating around unsecured, is causing a danger to shipping.  Every time this apparition has appeared, you have frantically roused your friends and neighbours who have rushed down to the harbour to secure the buoy and prevent catastrophe.  On all of these occasions they arrive to find that the buoy is safely moored outside the harbour entrance and everything is normal.  Your behaviour has caused such a stir that the story has been printed in the local paper and the townsfolk have now begun to point at you in the street.  You are being persecuted by your neighbours and former friends.  You have brought shame on your family and, thanks to the story in the local paper going viral on the internet, you are notorious.  You realise that your only hope of leading a normal life again is to run away and change your name.  You are the Wolf who cried “buoy”.

3.  Superb Pseudonym. You have devised the alias Fernando Manchega.  Pleased as punch with your own cleverness at having devised a non-de-guerre that contains elements of your own name and one of your favourite cheeses, you run away to start a new life in Belize taking your wife, Mrs Manchega, and your cat, Ignatio Peregrine Constantine Manchega, for company.  You are confident that no one will be able to track you down.

4.  Jordan. Having been introduced to Katie Price you have unaccountably made a good impression.  She is now pursuing you with amorous intent.  Run man, run!

5.  You Have A Dream. Your name is The Great Alfonso.  Your father is a circus strongman and your mother is a bearded lady.  You have been born into the circus business and your parents are adamant that it is your calling.  Since childhood, however, you have harboured a secret ambition and, in the twenty years that you have been a circus performer, this dream has begun to haunt you more and more.  You have now reached the stage that you find circus life unbearable.  You realise that, for the sake of your sanity, you must act to fulfil your desire.  You run away to join the accountancy firm of Baker, Foot and Slee.

6.  You are rightly reviled. You are Jan Moir.

7.  Sex. You are a trusted and long established Member of Parliament.  The publication in the News of the World of your sexual peccadilloes (which make the previous week’s headline that involved a rocking chair, a gymnast and a spotted-winged fruit bat seem tame,) have caused a hubbub in The House, a furore in Fleet Street and a hullabaloo in your home.  Your constituents are appalled, your colleagues are outraged and your wife is murderous.  You may have earned the admiration of contortionists and broccoli farmers everywhere but this is not enough to save your career or your reputation.  It is time to run away and change your name.