Penny isn’t a real person?

No, she isn’t. I made her up.

She started ‘life’ simply as a pseudonym on the Guardian User talkboard (GUT) – an internet forum run by the Guardian Newspaper, nominally to discuss the news, politics, and current affairs both British and international, but in practice hosting all kinds of discussion and even just friendly or not so friendly chatter.

When I first posted on GUT, I used my real name, but rapidly realized that this really wasn’t a good idea. But I was very afraid that people would spot me by my style and my choice of subject matter, whatever username I adopted. So I decided to create a character different enough from me that people wouldn’t recognize me.

Apparently it worked.

I originally wanted to use pennylane as my username, but although no-one seemed to have been posting under that name, it was taken. I quickly thought up some initials for her. Just plain plane seemed silly, and pljlane popped into my head, so that’s what she became. Female, to be obviously not me. Just to make sure everyone knew she was female, and indeed that she was Penny Lane, she signed off her posts Penny, as if they were letters, a thing almost no-one else was doing.

Another of her idiosyncrasies was the use of a trademark emoticon (or smiley). This emoticon was intended to represent her spectacles, her famously wonky nose, and of course the same grin everyone else uses. 8~)

She shot her mouth off on many subjects, and told lots of stories. She’s not as shy as me. Oh, the freedom! She really did take on a life of her own, I couldn’t help it. But she was never a troll. She never pretended to hold objectionable opinions, simply to wind people up. The opinions she expressed were always mine.

She made a few enemies, but she made a lot of friends, too.

Many of her posts are still there on GUT.

Eventually I (as my GU alter ego, coshipi) confessed to having made her up. The reaction was most interesting.

Some folks were scandalized – some still are. They’re hiding behind pseudonyms themselves, and who knows whether their stories are true or not?

Other folks forgave me, and some didn’t think there was anything to forgive. I’m friends in real life with several of each of those sorts now.

Many of the stories in this book first appeared – mostly in less detail than here – as posts on GUT. Many of them are true stories from my own past, with names changed. Many have other changes, too, to fit them into Penny’s life story rather than my own, or to anonymize them. Others are entirely fictional. I’m not going to tell you which are which. You can guess to your heart’s content.

One name I haven’t changed is Siddharth Surana’s. He’s real, and he’s really a friend of mine. His blog is at:

https://siddharth-surana.blogspot.com/

Take a look – I promise you it’s worth it. If you can’t read Hindi, you may need to scroll down to English entries.

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