Revamping your past life
HAVE you ever had the dream that goes ‘What if I had been born into a family with oodles of money’? Or, how about ‘What if I had possessed the genetic pre disposition handed down to me from Nobel prize winning parents’?
Come on! All of us, at some time or another, have wished we could suddenly re-invent ourselves, to escape old lives and, like one British politician, just toddle on down to the beach, dump one’s clothes and let everyone assume you have drowned when in fact you have scuttled of to Pissouri to open a theme bar…
These days however, the police are strangely uncooperative with attempts to fake one’s own death. But take heart, the simplest and easiest way to re-invent yourself is to immediately relocate to Cyprus. Here, as many ex pats have proved, the island provides an almost endless platform from which to set about moulding and impressing new people with an entirely fabricated past life. British men (in my experience) tend to be the worst offenders when it comes to trying on a Walter Mitty persona. Alas, most never quite manage to persuade even the most unobservant local that they are indeed a retired astronaut or a COE of a multi national when they sound and act like a retired gas fitter from Wigan (not that there’s anything wrong with being a retired gas-fitter from Wigan).
It’s all down to this need to escape from being trapped in the same suburban mediocrity that ensnared your parents, that makes people want to start over with a clean slate. The sad fact is that lies (as far as lectured to me at Sunday School) only end up making poor baby Jesus cry but the benefits of trying to improve and reshape one’s existence are clear for all to see. Just a couple of Persil white untruths, a little biographical concoction and suddenly being mysterious is no longer the preserve of… well, everyone else.
So, with just a few negligible fabrications, here are a couple of tips for rebuilding that crumbling and rather boring old life of yours.
Rule No 1. It’s vitally important to keep any close friends or family from your previous life that pop over for a visit totally separate from your new and, to date, deeply impressed acquaintances. They will only compare notes on you when you’re in the loo, then the whole fragile house of cards will come tumbling down.
Rule No 2. If you spent your formative years in a terraced house in Basingstoke eating raw herrings, staring at the carpet as your father entertained the family by playing the Dallas theme tune on a mouthorgan then it would be exceedingly prudent to concoct a more tantalising biography. I would suggest the following fail safe substitutes.
Story: – You are trying to trace the parents who abandoned you on the steps of the local library.
Back up statement: – ‘Perhaps I’m being selfish, but it’s not knowing, you know’
Benefits: – Women just adore the unlucky childhood yarn, and men who can maintain this valiant yet vulnerable demeanour always end up with the best looking arm candy.
Rule No 3. Sadly a strong regional accent can provoke unkind conclusions about you. A Norfolk drawl will have folk convinced you are a knuckle dragging country bumpkin, while a Liverpool lilt will have misguided onlookers periodically checking for their wallets. If thus afflicted you would be wise to embrace that good old failsafe ‘Middle England’ twang.
Rule No 4. You always have to have an escape route in case you let your guard down and blow your new cover right out of the water ( the in vino veritas scenario). Apart from swiftly moving on and starting again, your only option is what’s known as the ‘politicians option’, that’s when you respond with an even bigger porky pie.
To help you along here are a few ‘Politico’ gaffe-concealing templates to work from.
Q. How could you have been a paratrooper during the Korean War when you are only in your late forties?
A. I actually meant the Falklands – that’s the problem with cranial shrapnel wounds, combat just meshes into a single inhuman horror. Then move swiftly on to talking about how you originated the use of penguin poo for the effective fertilising of your roses.
Q. Bromwich? You told us you were born in Rajasthan while your father was there restoring a Mogul Palace.
A. No, that’s where I was conceived, but I like to think of it as my spiritual birthplace.
Finally the key thing to remember when you start this revamping of your past life is you will find the rudest people in the world are those who have neither the courage to tell the truth nor posses the good grace to tell a decent convincing white lie.
