Harold Bishop must be spinning like a top

I absolutely love this story of the canoeist who disappeared, only to turn up 5 years later asking if he was a missing person. Meanwhile his wife has cashed the insurance and cleared off to Panama. 5 minutes later, photos of the pair on holiday rock up from last year and the whole charade falls apart like a Derby County defence. Hilarious.

I must admit I was initially suspicious when this bloke knew his name but nothing else about who he was or where he'd been. And the fact that he turned up 5 years later, rather than a more random time seemed a bit suspect as well. Call me a traditionalist, but if I was trying to defraud the insurance company with an elaborate disappearance, I'd be less inclined to pose in publicity shots for a timeshare company. Pillocks.

Possibly the most amusing part of this whole farce is the fact that their two sons were allegedly clueless about the caper, and are now in full-on tits-out mode about being left in the dark. The press are going to great pains to suggest that the sons might actually be in on it though. Let's face it, their family doesn't exactly have a stellar record in the whole honesty stakes, does it?

I'm sure in hindsight, they would do a lot of things differently. Not getting caught would be a start. Not being completely shite at pretending to have amnesia might work as well. Maybe next time they should disappear in Portugal - nobody ever gets found again over there. Zing.