As has been said, “Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on people”. We have also often heard people exclaim, “Who would have thought?” or, as with some, “Who’da thunk?”

History is replete with it.

Who would have imagined that in the span of three years (1664-1666), thousands would die in England, defeated by (at the time) an apparently faceless enemy that took many, many years (until the closing days of the 1800s, apparently) before this minute conqueror was identified and named: Yersinia pestis. A rod-shaped bacterium transmitted by the rat flea to humans. Who would have put money on such a tiny creature being responsible for wiping out so many in what has come to be known as The Great Plague? It apparently took a similar outbreak in Hong Kong before Swiss/French scientist/bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin was able to identify the killer. Who’da even thunk? Meaning, who would have placed any money on it being a rat? Or, more technically, a rat flea?

Both the rat and the flea today come with baggage: The former associated with betrayal (You dirty, stinking rat!); the latter with its inherent nature (blood-feasting parasite!)

Which segues somewhat neatly to Johnny G.

Opinion is divided whether he’d be better off labelled a mole or a rat. According to my friend Barney, who assures me that he has over the course of his life been acquainted with several moles and rats, he can attest to the fact that Johnny G is unique, in that he is both mole and rat.

Johnny is also a distant cousin. Now an outcast cousin, cast far into the boondocks, never to be set eyes upon again, Barney hastens to clarify.

First, Johnny allegedly worked his way into the hearts and minds and homes of several near and dear ones.

“He was once the life and soul of the party.”

Another oft-heard sentence attributed to the fallen charlatan, and Barney has no qualms about claiming it and pinning it firmly to the breast of J.G. And another: “When he walked into the room, he brought the sun with him.” And yet another: “No one could tell a joke like him.” And, finally, in a sort of true chronology: “He had everyone eating out of his hand.”

That last being a bit misleading, Barney points out because it was J.G. that was in fact eating out of several other hands by this time. That is, by the time the laughter at all his jokes died down.

“At the end of the day, he was like a maestro conductor, conducting a twinkle-toed ballet opera.” Everyone was simply one pirouette away from offering him clothes, money, everything they had, to sustain him, keep him visiting.

“Firstly, for the charity he was setting up.” Nobility is life’s ultimate purpose, man’s ultimate goal, he proclaimed to relatives eager to lap up the dregs of his philosophy and thereby, in some vicarious way, be themselves associated with greatness of endeavour.

“He craftily wrote out a receipt for a cheque that granny Watkins wrote for him for quite a sum.”

Granny Watkins made the mistake all trusting elders do. She waved such officialdom aside. “Oh, don’t bother. It’s going for a good cause, that’s all I care about,” said Granny Watkins, allegedly, in the presence of several others. This of course became a precedent. Money willingly passing hands without documentation of receipt whatsoever.

“And the rat and its parasite continued to do what they were born to do. Then they just disappeared. Without a trace.”

“What would you do if you ever run into J.G.?” I ask Barney and if only to show how he’s been infected he replies, “Nobility is life’s ultimate purpose, man’s ultimate goal. It will take a bigger rat to hunt him down and bring him home.”

Perhaps he realises what he’s actually saying, for he turns a shade of red and adds, “But you know what I mean?”

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.