Call me Horace Norris as I embrace life on a pig farm

Rab’s sorely tempted to reinvent himself by doing a Reggie Perrin and vanishing – but he’s worried that coming back with a new identity could be just as fraught as inhabiting his current one

I’m sure that, at times, you’ve felt like disappearing. I don’t mean disappearing physically like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit whenever he put on … the Ring of Power. Neither do I mean just popping out. More and more, as I sit chained to my computer every day, I enjoy escaping from it, up the hill or round the suburb, my soul set free as I absent myself from the fretting world online.

No, I mean disappearing from yourself: going somewhere and becoming somebody else forever. I’m minded to witter thus by the case of an Italian man who fetched up in Britain, having decided to be himself no more.

And, oddly enough, I’ve just remembered that my DVD box-set of the moment is the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, in which our hero leaves his wife and his job as an executive at Sunshine Desserts, changes his appearance and takes up alternative employment, first as a gardener at a sewage plant and subsequently as a labourer on a pig farm.

That’s a bit extreme. I didn’t get where I am today (as Reggie’s boss was wont to say) by going to extremes. But the thought of just going somewhere and starting out again as someone else is tempting.

First, I’d have to change my name. Actually, Reginald Perrin would be nice, but it might make people suspicious. How about Horace? Nice, manly, normal name. Horace Norris. That’ll do. Something that doesn’t attract unwanted attention.

And I’d have to change my appearance, preferably without surgery. I could grow a beard but I’ve already got one. I’ve a feeling that having two beards might make one stand out. People would call me Horace “Two Beards” Norris.

No, the beard would have to come off, which is a scary thought. I think I told you about the time when, in a place where no one knew me, I shaved off my beard.

I’d a great big florid one at the time and took it off in stages. At each stage, I started to look better – and younger – until I made the final cut, creating a sight that made me scream in horror. For a start, I’d forgotten I’d a dimple like the Grand Canyon. And my skin was sallow after years in the shade.

I know: I’ll grow a great big florid beard again. You’d hardly know there was a face in there. What about my hair? I wouldn’t like to be bald as it is suggestive of moral turpitude. Neither would I like one of those shaven heads that became so popular in brutal Britain.

Got it: I’ll grow my hair long again, like it used to be in the days when I was happy. Actually, I’d start to look like Rasputin, which is hardly the way to be inconspicuous.

And that’s before I got another job. I’m not paranoid but I can tell you for sure that I’m on a national blacklist. If I applied to be a gardener at a sewage plant, or a labourer on a pig farm, I’d be turned down without interview.

It was easier to get such work back in Reggie’s day. Oh dear. I’ll have to rethink this idea of getting away and starting again. It appears that disappearing is harder than I thought.

Identity crisis can be taken to extremes but at least it gives you chance to be someone else.