The Virgilio Anderson Project

28th July 2009: Happy birthday to Virgilio Anderson. We hope that your serene Facebook nature will be restored to us soon.

CRITICAL UPDATE: Virgilio Anderson has disappeared from Facebook. We are urgently investigating - more news later...

Fans of Robert LePage and Richard Herring (there must be one of you out there) may enjoy The Virgilio Anderson Project, in which Herring attempts to steal Virgilio Anderson's identity in return for Anderson having taken his.

His name on Facebook, that is.

The real Richard Herring explains all on the page linked above. Please do not get the wrong idea from the imagery of the page - the moustache thing is an experiment...well, just read it, that is all explained too.

Update 1: Thanks to Virgilio I have had a good couple of hundred thousand people come to this page this week. So I think it's worth adding a little more content. Why don't you answer some of the questions posed by Richard in his column:

1. Is Paul Sheppard the new Virgilio Anderson?
2. When is Virgilio Anderson going to paint the rest of his house? Has he left just one pink bit after doing the rest brown, or is it vice versa?
3. If that house is as abandoned as it claims to be, who took that picture?

Since Wikipedia isn't allowing Virgilio his own page yet, you can use the comments section of this one to accumulate information about him. Facts or non-falsifiable assertions only, please - unless they're especially funny.

Update 2: More light on the Virgilio Anderson secret may be shed by this picture. If you're on twitter, please retweet "Who is #virgilioanderson" and see if the tag can become a trending topic. And if you think Virgilio Anderson should be forced to reveal his identity, his second home expenses and the reasons behind his decision to go to war, please sign the petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/VirgilioAnderson/

Update 3: I and a number of others including the Acting Head of Virgilian Research Paul Sheppard, are now Virgilio's Facebook friends and you can see some of the discoveries in the comments below. Thanks to the other intrepid commenters on this post: new research being conducted on Loot (you might need to visit another page on the Loot site then go back to that one). Also some intriguing pictures spotted around the place: here, here and my favourite here.

I think the Macedonia, Ohio hometown is a red herring (to coin a phrase) - probably because Facebook didn't have the correct Macedonian town in its database. Virgilio is a member of the group "The Former Turkish Republic Of Greece" which I think is quite a good joke against the politics of country naming - see here for a bit more history. In any case it seems a good indication that he really is Macedonian. Or North Macedonian. Or something. I don't want to get into trouble with my many Greek readers.

There are 37 people in the United States Census called Virgilio Anderson.

Update 4: Richard has returned to the theme in today's Warming Up entry. In other news, Paul Sheppard and I intended to register virgilioanderson.com but we missed the boat by a few minutes. We do have virgilioanderson.net and co.uk and a website will be up soon. Unless you're the owner of virgilioanderson.com and would like to work together with us - we would be happy to join forces. I say that blithely, as if I have authority to speak for Paul Sheppard as well as myself. But after all I do have his username on facebook...(not really)

Update 5: Thanks to Adam in the comments for his offer - I'll be in touch.

Meanwhile I have been investigating from a different direction. I had the idea that Richard Herring might be a real person in Macedonia - which might make a little more sense than Virgilio stealing our Richard's name. A Google for "Richard Herring" and Macedonia produces tons of results but none seem to be quite right. There is an Richard Herring, economics professor, who wrote an analysis of international banking systems - possibly including Macedonia's - but that was 25 years ago. However while searching, I came across this very odd little story [also with prequel - by ZombieSlayer54 from here]...

Update 6: Virgilio Anderson websites sprouting up as we speak...currently waiting for DNS servers to update and will publish the addresses here soon. In the meantime have a listen to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiOP04R3nZg

Update 7: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_architects

Update 8: Who is Anderson Virgilio? http://www.importgenius.com/importers/ariane-soung-anderson-virgilio.html

Update 9: The websites are up: http://www.virgilioanderson.co.uk/, http://www.virgilioanderson.com/ and an excellent posting at the Virgilio blog.

Update 10: Order your Virgilio Anderson t-shirts at Go Faster Stripe [no longer available - 90 shirts were ordered including seven small men (no Snow White jokes please), one small woman and two extra large women - and are being printed as a limited edition.]

Update 11: Find out if you are Virgilio Anderson at the Virgilio Anderson Quiz.

Update 12: The zenith of Virgiliism so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cw9go_qW48

Update 13: The question "Who is Virgilio Anderson?" is answered - accurately or not, you must judge for yourself - here.

Update 14: Super Detective Paul Sheppard has discovered that Virgilio has vanished from Facebook. A memorial service is to be held next week. Please buy all his records this week.