Let Them Eat Kayak

Or alternatively “Darwin Story Evolves”, or “Och aye canoe”. Paul Merton and the tabloids have the monopoly on puns in this instance though, so no more from me.

In my nine years in London, these are three of the things I learned:

1) Never fall asleep on a Night Bus.
2) The entire UK construction industry, from the loftiest CEO to the lowliest asthmatic work-horse that drags a wagon full of steel to the building site every morning, is irretrievably fucked.
3) If you sit down, press your knuckles against your forehead and strain hard enough, eventually you will either have a dump or a creative idea.

By a link more tenuous than a weather-beaten rope bridge across an Andes gorge, I’m guessing that John Darwin and his wife wished there had been an entirely different outcome when practicing option three - for their idea, though creative, was completely unworkable. In case you have been on another planet, or you have enough of a life (unlike me) to avoid populist soap-opera news and its mind-contorting whims, this is about the unfolding story of a canoeist who disappeared among the decommissioned ghost ships and grey waters of the North Sea near Hartlepool, back in 2000.

After £60,000 spent on helicopter, RNLI and police searches, and possibly even with the input of the little-known Militarily Trained Otter Squad (indispensable for uncovering mines in the English Channel during the Second World War, the poor furry suicide freaks), the search was called off. The people put down their newspapers, shook their heads and went back to their cups of tea, lamenting about poor Mr Darwin succumbing to a Giant Octopus, Great White Shark, prehistoric sea scorpion or any other thing that could explain the total absence of a body.

It is a fairly common occurrence for people to die from the elements in this country. This is a wet place, and an island, and so people drown, and it has some quite seductive hills, and so people die of exposure in them, quite possibly adorned in the “khaki shorts and flip-flops” so hated by Billy Connolly. Duly, those far from the story forgot quite quickly about it, possibly within minutes of its third- or fourth-priority airing on the national news. When the story was dredged up again, rather unlike John Darwin himself, most people did not have any recollection of the original disappearance.

But how things change. In a quirk that has amazed all, and certainly entertained Charlie Brooker if not all of us, Mr Darwin has come back from the dead and walked into a police station in London, claiming that “he thinks he might be a missing person”. On the first day that this story broke, it was treated with the kind of innocent happy-go-lucky reporting normally seen in the “And finally…” section of Metro. That it involved an apparent death need not harm the jovial nature of the story. After all that self-same “And finally…” column featured a man in Germany who allegedly lived off only cabbage and beans and suffocated to death in his own flatulence. Apparently a few of the people who retrieved his body from the bed also succumbed to the fumes and had to be hospitalised. A poor man died, but the story still provided us with much-needed mirth amid the gulping of other people’s sweat that occurs during the daily commuting headlock.

The fog of innocence seemed to lift quickly in the canoe saga though. First, the confounding news that John Darwin had been arrested. Then the focusing of the media noose on his wife in Panama, cue panoramic shots of a strangely futuristic and skyscraper-littered Panama City, looking every bit the tax–evading hideaway. Then, apparent genuine shock from the wife, but the confusion mounting with the amount of time she seemed to be taking to reunite with her long-lost husband. Then outrage from their sons who apparently knew nothing, one of whom then disappeared mysteriously leaving his girlfriend a note that he had gone abroad. Nothing like some well-placed anger to throw the dogs off the scent (and hopefully down the stairs to be impaled on a rake, I detest the animals). All of this allegedly of course, no one knows anything with any certainty yet. And lastly, but most brilliantly, someone types in the Darwin’s names and ‘Panama’ into Google, and a photograph taken last year shows them happily standing together along with the estate agent pops up. It reminds me of the time I posed with that body-bag. Really bad move, but at least I got an Open University degree in Bathroom Tiling out of my time inside.

The unravelling of this story has captivated the nation, but it has done so in quite a different way than we are used to. This story is different; there is no hysteria, just gentle but definite interest. The story is so rich and amusing that a fiction writer would have trouble crafting something comparable even when uninhibited by boundaries and physical realities. It climbed quickly to number one on the news priority scale, and has remained perched atop this infamous throne for a number of days now. The government must be happy that something so frivolous at least seems to be taking the heat off the dodgy donations stories that had occupied us before.

This mystery has all the great hallmarks: Houdini-style disappearance, family rifts, flights abroad, public U-turns on national news, rampant amnesia, sweaty and nervous visits to a Catholic church, false doors in flats, scrawled notes and packed bags, ashen-faced understatement from a Cleveland police spokesman, an incriminating photograph… Pink Floyd could write a concept album on it. All the story needs is a furry animal or two, a guest appearance from Paris Hilton and a subtle finger of blame pointing at binge drinking culture and unilateral military intervention and we’ll have ticked all of the boxes.

Mrs Darwin returned to the UK and is as we speak being questioned by police. The life insurance people won’t take this apparent abuse of their service sitting down. With every day that goes by, the story gets murkier and murkier. Fascinating. The story has more holes in it than a moth-eaten shirt kept in a stuffy Oklahoma drawer since the Dust Bowl migrations. But enough of this or we will drown, again unlike Mr Darwin, in a sea. Of metaphors that is (groan).

Instead, here is my guide to How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found (and no, no link to the Radiohead song of the similar name, you have to pace yourself or you will find yourself on a bridge parapet, sack of coal in hand, staring at the river beneath you and wondering how cold it will be). This might be useful should you ever have to flee, especially from the Law (rub hands with glee to maintain warmth):

1) Change your name to something very prevalent in the general population. John Smith is good, as it is ubiquitous. John Doe is not so good, as you will be automatically implicated in court cases for people who need to remain publicly anonymous. Actually they will still find you. Haven’t you heard of CCTV? Only use as a last resort.
2) The old plastic surgery trick. Go under the knife. Cheap surgeries can be done on the street in Glasgow and with often minimal blood loss as our knifemen are technically adept and enjoy to practice. With any luck, you will lose quite a bit of weight as well. A well-placed pool of melted set-square can puff out those unsightly gouge marks.
3) Chameleon Blood Infusions. Since global warming brought more tropical climates to our south coast, chameleons have been arriving on their little lizard boats in droves. They often arrive unannounced in such towns as Hastings, Littlehampton and Bournemouth and often go unnoticed in the general population, many within the service industries, and they have even carved their own niche in the lucrative paint-mixing industry, adept as they are at colour emulation. However, some of them fall on hard times, and do not find such ready acceptance. Many resort to alcoholism, and their most steady source of income is the selling of their blood to people, like yourself, who want to be able to blend into their surroundings so as to avoid discovery. The going rate is £10 a pint, and two pints should be more than enough for you to turn into a chessboard or a psychedelically-patterned curtain in an instant. Hang around the waterfront at the aforementioned towns and whistle the Archer’s theme tune to attract the blood-letters.
4) Become a viking. For many years, this used to be an idle pass-time for people with pots of money and oodles of leisure time. These days, a Viking package tour will set you back a fraction of the cost, and you can go back and reclaim the Norse kingdoms without need of a passport or National Insurance number. Horned helmet optional but advised.
5) Deify yourself. Easier said than done. But as a god, you will be worshipped by millions and be immune from prosecution. Just the ticket when you are being hunted down by the authorities for starting that earthquake. Learning the harp, adhering to a strictly focused exercise regime that will build your biceps into an aileron-shape capable of flight, and installing a megaphone amplifier in your throat, hooked up to the battery supply for your pacemaker (for that godly “Wizard of Oz” effect) won’t disappoint.
6) Live in international waters. For this, you will need a dinghy, an oar, and several decades supply of food. Once there, it will be impossible to be prosecuted or extradited. Whatever you do, don’t use a canoe though.
7) Powder of Sympathy. This substance, popular in eighteenth century France among madmen, alchemists, would-be navigators and injured dogs, can be mixed together from Copper Sulphate, mixed under the auspices of the Sun when it is in the constellation of Leo. When an implement that has been used to wound someone is dipped in the powder, it triggers a sharp pain in the victim. Lightly wound the judge in your impending court case and then while the case is being heard, continually dip the knife in the sympathy powder. The pain will cause him to adjourn the trial. Then quietly slip out the fire escape and away! Away!
8) Become an Avon Lady (cross-dress if necessary). No one knows where the fuck they went, do they?

Ah, Mr Darwin. Such a fall from grace. To think you could have stuck with the earthworm studies and world-changing biological theories. Charlie Brooker reckons that they should be let off for entertaining the nation. I reckon it won’t be long until they are up there with great current-affairs personalities like celebrity terrorist-tackler, Smeato.