They seek him here...

The problem with The Scarlet Pimpernel is nobody expects The Scarlet Pimpernel...  

Oh, wait. Wrong historical farce. I’ll come in again.

They seek him here, they seek him there, they seek him… you get the picture. I was asked yesterday why I hide behind a pseudonym. Am I afraid of being revealed? Why anonymity? I say, why not? Ask Reg Dwight, Roy Harold Scherer Jr. Marion Morrison and Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. 

My inquisitor declared that hiding behind a pseudonym was common amongst right-wing tweeters. I say there’s a conspiracy theory lurking within every personal agenda and I’m sure, if I bothered to look, I’d find exactly the same phenomenon amongst left-wing tweeters. (Or just tweeters in general.) But I can’t be bothered to look because, in the main, I’d rather chat to people I can have a rational exchange with.

And there’s your problem, right there, mate. Yeah, wot it is, right, it’s like, we’ve already, like, decided, innit? There is little point in a Left arguing with a Right as both are ideologically opposed. As open-minded as I believe I am, there are some left-wing beliefs that leave me gape-mawed in astonishment. There’s as much chance of finding agreement between Muslims and Jews, or between chimps and wombats.

Which brings us back to Batsby. Once upon a time, many years ago, I adopted the forum name of ‘dingbat’. It wasn’t sinister – everybody had forum names. I used it to register on the multitude of sites which require a user name and I set up a similarly anonymous email address to deal with any spam. On one such site, the name dingbat was already taken, so I ended up with Batsby, from which, as I lived in West Yorkshire at the time, my pen-name of Bryan Battersby not so much evolved as ‘arrived’.

For the record, I rarely use my real name online, I don’t own any loyalty cards and I pay for my shopping in cash; I have no interest in telling Tesco how to target me. I use different email addresses for different types of interaction and I don’t answer the door or the phone to cold-callers. I have nothing to hide, but neither have I anything to gain from standing naked in public.

I don’t believe that spy satellites follow my every move and I don’t really own a tinfoil hat, although the Bacofoil is near at hand, just in case. I write what I believe – or what I think is funny or entertaining - you are free to agree, reject, applaud, ignore or block me (like Billy Bragg just did). There is no point in busting a gut to hate me or the people I find agreeable company. (Incidentally, I loathe extremists at all points of the compass.)

But, in the interest of transparency I’m going to finally come clean. I’m not actually a balding, greying, middle-aged loser… I am, in fact, a fourteen-year-old girl called J’anice Beaver, hoping to lure in balding, greying middle-aged losers for fun and frolics. And cash.

Skype me!