Leamington Is Full Of The Strangest People, no. 4: Anti ID Theft Derek

Having enjoyed a hiatus from gazing at the inevitably hairy naval of my hometown of Leamington Spa, I thought it was about time I resurrected this short series of posts that throw a blogging super trouper onto the underbelly of Queen Victoria’s favourite Spa town…

Today is the turn of Anti ID Theft Derek.

I first encountered Derek in Tesco which in terms of meeting weird people has the highest weird-to-normal ratio of any other venue in the UK (not including Stringfellow’s or Spearmint Rhino or other establishments of that ilk).

Now, Derek is one of those people with a very definite sense of identity. If he was a mallard he wouldn’t be content with cobalt blue and electric green feathers, no, he would be blinging himself up with bird of paradise plumage and other peacockery. Derek, you see, likes a bit of bling. Gold chains (multiple) around his neck; gold chains (multiple) around his wrist and the lot topped off with a porkpie hat resplendent with a red feather erupting up from the headband like a miniature erection.

Identity is a big thing with Derek. You cannot miss Derek. And Derek, I am sure, never fails to miss himself – Alzheimer’s is never going to be in Derek’s genetic makeup though obsessive compulsive behaviour might be.

Now talking of bling has probably given you the impression that Derek is in his twenties. Some thrusting young buck with a uranium knuckleduster hampering his joystick skills. This is not the case. Derek is in his sixties or I am the unwanted love-child of John Lennon and Lisa Tarbuck.

An old(er) man with bling is never a good thing. For one thing it can really disrupt an MRI scan just when you really need it the most.

Anyway, what caught my eye about Derek (aside from the gold accoutrements and the red feather stiffy) was the way he paid for his goods (one bottle of vodka and a four pack of cheap beer). He paid by card – nothing strange in that – but when it came time to punch in the PIN he placed his wallet tight over the machine like a barrier and then sealed the top of it with his own face thus appearing as if he had on a welding mask and was about to administer some kind of industrial coup d’état to the checkout machine. In fact he reminded me a little of that episode of Doctor Who where people had gas masks erupting out of their faces. I half expecting him to start asking the entire shop in a high-pitched voice: “are you my mummy”. Which the cashier would have had to answer no to as he was, well, a he.

Talk about paranoia.

Did he really think I was going to look over his tweedy shoulder, memorize his PIN code and then put it in The Times via some improbable crossword cypher or just publish it on-line in some easy-to-download format for America’s Prism surveillance programme to pick up on?

Plainly Derek has some real identity issues.

He’s scared people are going to want to steal his identity above all others and become the oddball glory that is him.

And I have to say, thinking about it, who wouldn’t want to swan around in a hat that comes complete with its own wafty hard-on?

Exactly.

I rest my case.