Top tips from Macca, master of disguise!
Where’s Ghislaine Maxwell? since her friend Jeffrey epstein’s suicide, she seems to have disappeared.
In these high-surveillance days, it’s hard to stay hidden. Before CCTV and the internet, those who needed to keep their heads down stood more of a chance.
As a child, I used to enjoy the Batman TV series, in which millionaire Bruce Wayne and his young ward Dick Grayson were able to don the thinnest of disguises — tights, capes, flimsy eye-masks — to pass by undetected as ‘dynamic duo’, caped crusader Batman and robin, the excitable Boy Wonder.
even though Police Commissioner Gordon used to pay regular visits to Bruce and Dick in their mansion, he never for one moment guessed that they were Batman and robin.
Meanwhile, the Loch Ness monster made little attempt at disguise — no tights, no cape, no eye-mask — yet he was hardly ever spotted, even though his address was well advertised.
When the Great Train robber ronnie Biggs was on the run, he underwent a modest bit of facial surgery and managed to live quietly in Australia for quite a while before being rumbled.
even the fugitive Labour MP John stonehouse enjoyed a month undercover in Australia under the pseudonym Joseph Markham before the Australian police tracked him down. Oddly enough, they had initially mistaken him for the missing peer Lord Lucan, who has never been found.
In 1966, after the Beatles’ final tour, one of the most famous men in the world, Paul McCartney. decided that he wanted a taste of anonymity. What would it be like to be normal, and to pass unrecognised?
Paul went to a company called Wig Creations in search of a disguise. They fitted him out with a false moustache and a pair of spectacles with clear lenses. he found that by slicking his hair back with Vaseline and donning a long overcoat he could wander around unrecognised. he then went on a motoring holiday around France.
It all came to an end when he was staying at a hotel in Bordeaux and felt a yearning for some night life. he turned up at a local disco in his disguise but was refused
entry. ‘I looked like a jerk: “No, no, monsieur, non — you schmuck, we can’t let you in!” ’ he recalled. so he went back to his hotel, took off his moustache, his overcoat and his specs, and went back to the night club as Paul McCartney. Needless to say, he was welcomed with open arms. he never regretted his short excursion into anonymity. ‘Actually, by the time of the club I’d sort of had enough of it. Which was good. It was kind of therapeutic but I’d had enough. It was nice because I remembered what it was like to not be famous, and it wasn’t necessarily any better than being famous. It made me remember why we all wanted to be famous: to get that thing.’ More recently, serbian war criminal radovan Karadzic managed to evade capture for over ten years by changing his name, adopting a Father Christmas-style beard and setting up shop as a homeopathic doctor, specialising in sexual disorders. At the moment, both Ghislaine Maxwell and the Duke of York are keen to keep their heads down. For the Duke of York, the task will be harder, as his face is better known. Might he be able to cash in on his passing resemblance to the late Terry scott, the comic actor whose chubby features graced some of the least funny comedy series of the sixties and seventies?
BY NOW, Ghislaine must be running out of places to hide. Where would nobody think of looking? here are my top ten suggestions: Crouched inside the Archbishop of Canterbury’s swear Box.
In Chris Grayling’s office file, under F for ‘Future Appointments’.
In the overflow room at this autumn’s Change UK party conference.
Tucked inside the Acceptance box for sir Philip Green’s next celebrity party.
Behind the exercise bike in Mark Francois’ gymnasium.
Nestled in Vladimir Putin’s golden treasury of All-Time Favourite Knock-Knock jokes.
In the same drawer as Diane Abbott’s pocket calculator.
In Kim Kardashian’s walk-in wardrobe, between the section labelled ‘Old Favourites’ and the section labelled ‘Cheap and Cheerful’.
In richard Dawkins’ private chapel.
Behind the amplifiers in the rees-Mogg family disco.