Where is Osama bin Laden?

If you're a mastermind of international terrorism, you don't have very many choices. You can change your appearance, go to some uninhabited corner of the world or hide in a place where no one would ever think to look for you, but which will be a lot more comfortable than a cave or an igloo at the North Pole.

Clearly, if he's going to change his appearance, Osama could be anywhere. Without his trademark beard, he is essentially unrecognizable. That's the good thing about beards if you're going to change your identity: no one ever looks past them to see what the rest of you looks like. Without his beard, Osama could be hiding in plain sight, probably working in the service industry in one of those jobs that means nobody ever looks at you. As long as he can tell people to have a nice day, he could be working just about anywhere, probably serving fries or pumping gas.

And where is the cheapest short term car insurance in the UK? And the best insurance for hairdressers? And the least rip-off insurance for young drivers?

If he's gone for the option of hiding somewhere so remote no one will bother to come looking for him, then it's pretty obvious what his best move will have been. Osama went into that cave in Afghanistan and he never came back out. Instead, he tunneled down into the rock, went straight through the center of the Earth and popped out somewhere in the South Pacific. If he had a good enough sense of direction, he'll be living on an island, Robinson Crusoe style. He certainly has the beard for it and he clearly already has some survival skills. If he missed his mark, then he'll have had to float in the ocean until a passing ship picked him up and he was forced to join the navy. He wasn't too keen on his new haircut, but at least he won't be heading back to Afghanistan anytime soon. Like Switzerland, it doesn't really need the navy.

The third solution is the best. There's one place where Osama can keep his own beard, live in the lap of luxury and even make an honest living if he wants to. Some people think he's gone to Washington because that's the last place anyone would look, but if Osama is in the US, he's in Hollywood, working as a bin Laden look-alike. His services are incredibly popular, but he does meet with some criticism from people who think his beard doesn't look quite right.

There are some other options for bin Laden's future hideouts if he gets tired of the Hollywood limelight. If he does still have his beard, then that North Pole idea might be worth another think. All he has to do is dye it white. A bearded man with a group of followers who he expects to do his every bidding and who likes to deliver mysterious packages all around the world? Clearly he can start a new life as Santa Claus, as long as his groupies don't mind putting bells on their turbans.