Lying, the new black

Lying, as some old dude once said, “is telling the truth, from a certain point of view”

That point of view is somewhere in Bullshit Land of course, which I believe was the location that Bush and Blair formulated the rationale for the invasion of Iraq.

Anyway, lying is not inherently wrong; there are always grey areas, for example,

Timmy: Uncle Herge, are my parents dead?

Herge: Um, no they are just resting.

Timmy: Why is daddy resting with his head missing?

Herge: Good question Timmy; here have a bar of galaxy.

Or

Winona’s attorney: Have you been stalking my client?

Herge: Um…no.

Or

Vet: Have you been beating your dog with a stale french stick?

Herge: Um...no

Or

Girlfriend: Were you flirting with my best friend Sarah?

Herge: Um…no.

See no harm done, and as it happens Sarah was flirting with me, but then that was over ten years ago so who cares now? Well me, Sarah was hot, I should have gone off with her and left my then girlfriend behind. We may have been married with children by now, living a happy fulfilled existence, rather than this one.

Not that I’m unhappy with my life of course, its great.

That was an example of a white lie. This is a lie where no one gets hurt, or at least no one worth bothering about.

Lying is never wrong.

Not ever.

Unless you find out someone has lied to you, in which case, “Damn them all to hell!”


Obsessed? but she's so pretty...

These are a few of my favourite lies,

Parent to child: “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up”

Girlfriend to me: “It doesn’t matter, it happens to everyone” (this followed my disastrous pounding at Halo by my 10-year-old nephew)

Me to everyone: “No, I’m fine, honest”

Boss to me: “There is a future for you in this company”

Me to Boss: “I like my job”

Me to everyone: “The Winona obsession is an ironic, post modern joke”

Everyone to me: “The grey in your hair looks good”

Me to my friends: “I like you best”

Me to my girlfriends at the time: “I love you”

Them to me: “I know”

Some poor souls have enormous trouble lying. My mate, lets call him Mr X, he cannot lie for toffee, or any other confectionary, or indeed for anything at all. Useless. I’m always telling him, if when you lie you start to stutter and blush, you need to do this all the time, then when you do lie, no one will know. Sorted.

They say the best way to tell a lie is to hide it in an even bigger lie. See if you can spot the real lie here,

“No honey, honestly, when I was in the supermarket there was an armed siege. A couple of shoppers were shot dead, I dived on the ground just as the gunman fired. Thank god, it missed me, but it did destroy the last of the lillets. The police came, killed them all, and let me go. Here’s the rest of the shopping”

I think everyone should tell at least one lie per day. If you do, you will soon feel like you are taking a bit of yourself back, piece by piece.

Here are some lies you may want to try on for size,

“I’ll do it right away”, “I’m busy”, “I already gave”, “You look great”, “Hmm this is tasty”, “My pleasure”, “It’s good to see you”, “I haven’t got time”, “We should get together, soon”, “You have a wrong number”, “You look good in that”, “I don’t have any change”, “I missed you”, “I love you”, “I love the children”.

I swear, as soon as you start incorporating more lying into your daily routine you will feel a world better – honestly you will… no seriously.

And don’t worry about those people who claim they never lie; they are clearly to stupid to lie.