{"text":[[{"start":4.75,"text":"Ah, the joy of summer holidays. You head off a wreck, you come back slightly less so, and full of resolutions about doing things differently. Let’s face it, repeating this seasonal loop palls after a few decades. So imagine my delight when my lakeside reading offered up a bold plan: become someone else. "}],[{"start":23.25,"text":"What I actually mean is, adopt a pseudonym. It has so many uses. A nom de guerre for risky business. A nom de plume for writing that’s out of your professional comfort zone. Both allow you to explore the road less travelled and even to dodge accountability where expedient. It wasn’t me, it was her! More of us should give this a go."}],[{"start":44.45,"text":"My holiday-reading inspo for Operation Alias was the world of espionage. It seems the MI6-Soviet double agent Kim Philby, that absolute copper-bottomed cad and bounder, was also a dilettante journalist during the long years when the British establishment struggled to wake up to his misdeeds. Serious pieces appeared under his own name, but articles of which he was not proud were delivered under the nom de plume of Charles Garner — a byline reserved for topics Philby considered “trivial, ‘fluffy’ or distasteful” according to Ben Macintyre’s splendid biography A Spy Among Friends."}],[{"start":80.9,"text":"Well, I hope you know that I would never touch on matters distasteful in this column. But I may, and let’s go no further than that, be tempted on to territory that bygone FT readers would have considered trivial or on occasion even fluffy. So, maybe I too need a dummy byline. But what?"}],[{"start":97.95,"text":"Because the problem with Philby’s alias is that it’s just too dull for words — or for words to be attached to it that might seem worth reading. John Banville, the Irish novelist, had the decency to go for Benjamin Black for his series of police procedural thrillers. (They’re superb, give them a go.) Alliterative. Theatrical. And redolent of the dark streets of Dublin his characters are made to stalk."}],[{"start":122.05000000000001,"text":"David Cornwell chose John le Carré to conceal his identity as a real-life member of the intelligence services — you can’t deny that one provides flair as well as a decoy identity. As for Anton Chekhov, his earliest foray into writing was made as Antosha Chekhonte — fun but not much of a disguise. Later on he used really daffy pseudonyms, including ChampagneSky, which sounds as if he was hitting the best mood-enhancers known to his fellow Moscow medical students. Or, as if with weird prescience, he had invented a dodgy disguise for waging war on social media far in the future."}],[{"start":159.70000000000002,"text":"Of course Philby’s real name wasn’t “Kim” anyway — he was plain Harold until he embraced his peppier nickname. But I’m no double agent, so I need just the one alter ego."}],[{"start":170.9,"text":"It occurred to me to write as Karen Dash, inspired by the coloured pencils and spectacular stationery produced by Caran d’Ache of Geneva — its tabletop sharpener is so gorgeous that it turned up on the list of luxuries bought by the SNP’s Peter Murrell with embezzled party funds. Political colleagues less obsessed with art supplies thought I was talking about a backbench MP when I started waxing lyrical about this object of desire. Is Karen Dash the member for somewhere in the West Midlands?, they speculated. No. But maybe “Karen” could have a future at the FT. "}],[{"start":207.55,"text":"She would certainly offer deniability on projects that flop, yea even unto columns the editor dislikes. But it’s dull and a bit too Grant Shapps for my liking. Michael Green was a dowdy choice for the former Tory politician’s pseudonymous business identity, though I quite like two other names he has reportedly denied using but should have: Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox. They sound fun — perhaps they hang out with ChampagneSky."}],[{"start":233.55,"text":"So, to protect my reputation, henceforth I shall write here as Esmée de Vandelaur, one of the many names my grandmother chose to adopt while sashaying around Balham in her girlhood — her real name was Edith. At one point Grandma wanted to be known as Monica Courtenay — Monica is a good moniker for glamming it up. It’s aspirational. I, for example, am hoping to produce something better than pseudonymous tosh (which might have been quite a good alias for a well-known Dutch painter)."}],[{"start":263.85,"text":"So let’s give this a go. Perhaps you can’t pull off the full Zorro. A mask may simply not suit your face shape. But on paper at least we can all be a master or mistress of disguise. "}],[{"start":274.6,"text":"Miranda Green is the FT’s deputy opinion editor"}],[{"start":278.20000000000005,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram"}],[{"start":290.80000000000007,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787356113_1962.mp3"}