Although no one can actually find any record of her saying it, the novelist George Eliot is credited with coming up with that old favourite of fridge magnet makers, and lifestyle coaches: ‘it’s never too late to be what you might have been.’
I agree and, to that end, have re-branded myself as of today as ‘Trevor’. After all, if Facebook can do it, why shouldn’t I? It’s not as if either of us has anything to be ashamed about. Anyway, in these heady days of social progress, I think I can identify as who or what I like.
In my new incarnation, I will be able to fix things in the house (which will please Caroline) and support my local football team with a fervour with which my upbringing simply didn’t equip me.
At the moment of epiphany, it also occurred to me that others could usefully do the same thing. Whatever it is that I am negatively running away from in the name ‘Roger’, and what Mark Zuckerberg is running away from in ‘Facebook’, we are both running positively towards something new. For Mr Zuckerberg, that would be a fresh start, and for me it would be the toolbox, and a life of fixing things without bringing expensive people in to do it.
To that shared end, here are a few ideas from my morning dog walk.
Our Prime Minister becomes ‘Graham’, obviously. In my experience, you would never catch out a Graham over-promising, blustering or telling convenient fibs. No, Mr Johnson’s new incarnation would involve painstakingly accurate mathematics, not least in his personal life, and the life-enhancing ability to answer questions with: ‘I’m not sure about that. It’s a good question that deserves a proper answer, and I will go and find out.’
Our Home Secretary would, of course, become Margaret. Margaret Patel. In sharp contrast to the current one, I suspect that the new Margaret Patel would sit at Dover with a large kettle of tea, dispensing kindness and Darjeeling in equal measure to the gathered asylum seekers. ‘Just look at you,’ she would purr. ‘You need to put on a nice, thick jersey.’
On the opposite benches in parliament would be Cliff Starmer. Edgy, naughty Cliff. Cliff with those deft one-liners, and rapier like ripostes at Prime Minister’s questions. We like our leaders to have a bit of colour in their past, and there would be deep memories of Cliff propping up the bar in inappropriate punk dives in his youth. When Cliff enters the room, there will be an air of anticipation, not a patient shrug.
Over the Channel, President Macron’s attack-poodle, Clement Beaune, whose vicious one-line anti-British Tweets would be more at home in a teenage bedroom than the Elysee Palace, will be called Horatio. In which capacity, he will be able to see life not only through British eyes, but through maritime ones as well, and will therefore adopt a more reasoned tone.
His boss would be Kevin. Even though it will make his Napoleonic dreams that tiny bit harder to achieve, he will be shorn of pomposity and and rhetoric. Kevins don’t do pomposity and rhetoric; they do useful things like change the catalytic converter on your car, manage football teams or run aid agencies. In the lottery of life that is giving a child a first name, Kevin is one that comes with boundaries.
We all need a good re-brand from time to time. Just ask Consignia and Centrica.
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