How to Disappear off the Face of the Earth and Why You Should Try it This Season

Everyone loves a good mystery. That's why Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed grossed $400 in the Box Office. But although we see mystery portrayed in film time and time again, when was the last time you actually encountered a mystery in real life?

To properly construe my point, I have designed a short quiz to determine how much mystery is currently in your life.

Have you, or has anyone you know, ever:

a) been selected to track down an escaped mental patient, only to find that the missing patient was yourself? 

b) spent years battling amnesia and trying to track down the man who killed your wife with insulin, only to find that that man was yourself?

c) gone on a quest to find Mary Magdalene's tomb and discovered that it's under that triangle thing outside the Louvre, and that Mary Magdalene was yourself?

d) had anything remotely similar to the plot of Gone Girl happen to you?

If you answered 'no' to any of the above questions, then it sounds like it is a good time to enigma-up your life. There's no better time to start than right now immediately!!

Why Scooby and Velma never got together is the greatest mystery of all

The reason there are so many movies about mysteries, is that we, as an internation, have forgotten what it is to encounter a mystery for reals. And no wonder. We live in a world where it is near-impossible to be MIA, or AWOL, or DDR. We're all on the grid, like a giant game of Battleships. 

Thanks to Edward Norton leaking the contents of Obama's diary back in 2013, we know that we are being watched 24/7 by the NHS. Our every move is constantly monitored; when we are sleeping, or hanging out with our friends, even while using the internet to search for child porn.

To make matters worse, everyone uses social media these days, even (unfortunately) old people. Social media is just another means for 'Big Brother' to infiltrate our lives. Once you put something on the internet it's there forever, like herpes.  

Between us putting the information out there, and the government right clicking, and saving it to desktop, privacy is a thing of the past. It's like in the Lord of the Rings, how when Frodo puts on the ring the huge creepy eye of Sauron can see him, even though he's miles away in the forest hiding under his cloak that makes him look like a rock. And if I learned anything from Lord of the Rings, it's that you definitely don't want to be a Frodo. You want to be a Gandalf, or an Aragorn, or at the very least Elrond. You don't want to be Gollum either, but for different reasons. 

So how do you seize back your privacy and be the mystery you always dreamed of becoming? I have compiled a list of excellent tips to help you become a modern day Madeleine McCann. 

1. Start by deleting all of your social media accounts. This won't be easy, but it will be worth it. It takes 6 weeks to delete a Skype account, so start today!

2. Throw your phone into the river. Then throw your whole house into the river if you can.

3. Get one of those SIA wigs that obscure your face and wear it always.

4. Go to mountainous China and live out your days alone in a cave. You will need a fake passport for this so that there is no record of you leaving the country. When you get to China, set fire to the passport and scatter the ashes along the entire length of the Great Wall.

Bonus points if you: a) have extensive facial reconstructive surgery so that you are no longer recognisable, or b) successfully fake your own death. 

Godspeed, friends, on your journey to total privacy. I hope to never hear from you again.

How to achieve success and other such life advice

When my family used to go on long car trips together, my dad would make us listen to a book on tape. This book was called 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad.' At the beginning of the tape the narrator explains that this is the story of his two dads and their differing financial situations. Now, these were not two gay dads. This was not an awesome story about one family's battle against discrimination and adversity. Instead, it was a boring story about a young boy who had a poor dad, but his friend had a rich dad, and this rich dad taught the boy all about how to own a business and rake in the cash and whatnot. 

What did I learn from the entire debacle? Nothing. And yet, somehow I have still managed to end up living the high life; employed and rapidly climbing the corporate ladder (in my head). So, in order to help out all those less successful than myself, I have decided to compile a list of tips to help everyone be just like rich dad. 

1. Dress the part.
The age-old adage 'dress to impress' is an important one to follow once you are attending business meetings with international skype calls to the head office in South Korea. The ideal workplace attire would be something like David Bowie meets Macklemore, but it is difficult for me to emulate this personally, because I only own two pairs of pants. So instead I just try to wear neutral tones, and always keep my fingernails trimmed even though it has always been my dream to grow them long enough that I can file them into claws and then take off into the night sky. My hair is another story. Much like Miley Cyrus, my hair can't be tamed. It is as wild as the rugrats were in 'Rugrats go Wild' and every time I try to tie it up I miss enough of the back that I'm pretty much walking around with a jedi plait. For some reason no one ever notifies me about this so it is never until I get home hours later that I realise I have spent all day in the public eye as Obi Wan. 

Me (pictured above) attending a job interview

2. A firm handshake is a superior handshake. 
A fundamental part of employment is asserting your dominance in a business-type scenario. How better to do this than in the ¿handshake?: a widely performed gesture in the working world. It is a rule of the handshake that whoever comes out of it with a still functional hand is the winner, so grip that hand like you are Jack and Rose gripping the bow of the Titanic. If you don't feel their bones being crushed into a fine powder in your grip then you are not clasping tight enough. 

3. Retain your individuality.
The workforce is a cruel place that takes happy-go-lucky free spirited people and changes them into mindless drones. Mostly, we don't even notice that we have forgotten who we are until Mufasa appears in the clouds and tells us. So, look for anything that will keep you unique. Perhaps carry around an ear trumpet, or keep a framed photo of Yoko Ono on your desk. However, if you are born in September be sure to keep that quiet because September is the least unique month. Probably upwards of 90% of the world's population was born in September. A number of years ago I asked my mum why this was. Her response? "It's nine months after new years, if you know what I mean ;)." It was so awkward I never spoke to her again. 

In summary, no one needs to waste hours of their life listening to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That is something I would not wish upon my worst enemy. Instead, keep these wise words in mind: Life is like monopoly. There are banks, there are houses, there are thimbles. However, unlike monopoly, life is not a game. Unless we are talking about the Game of Life because that is a game.