According to a scientific research paper published in 2011, each of us tell an average of 1.66 lies a day. The average man lies 1.93 times every day whilst a woman lies 1.39 times.
The research scientists reported that difference is wholly accounted for by the fact that it’s only men who are ever asked, “Does my bum look big in this?”
Interestingly, 5% of the sample admitted to just more than 50% of all the lies that were declared to researchers. Those people must spend a fortune on replacing their burnt pants.
However, as virtually all participants in this scientific survey admitted that they lied on occasions, how can we believe the published results?
I can’t remember the last time I calculatedly told a lie. With my uneventful way of life, I never have the inducement, need or opportunity to do so.
The last time I can remember being tempted to lie was soon after we moved into our current house, six years ago. There was a knock on the door one morning and there stood a woman who was visibly angry.
“Did you put this into a bin?” she demanded, holding up a broken lamp and thrusting towards my face.
I had to think quickly. Yes, I had put it into one of the communal bins but why was she so furious about it? I had obviously done the wrong thing and the easiest response was to lie and say I hadn't but hey-ho, what the so:
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s my bin. I look after it. I wash it out every month. You have your own bin so use it and not mine!”
She moved away a year ago and I don’t miss her.
I don’t think I tell lies but I do tend to exaggerate sometimes and I have a friend who once, when he discovered that I had exaggerated about something, suggested that I was actually lying. I suppose that, technically, he was right and exaggeration is a form of lying.
Perhaps it’s hereditary, as my father was inclined to exaggerate sometimes.
January 1963 was very, very, very cold - no exaggeration. In fact, it was the coldest month in the UK since 1814, with -2.1°C (28.2°F) the average January temperature in central England. Dad was driving us on the A12 back to Lowestoft, after a weekend visiting his brother in London.
That journey usually took about three hours but the roads were treacherous because of ice and deep snow. After four hours we had only reached Ipswich, 45 miles from home. Dad pulled into a pub for some food.
“Difficult journey?” asked the barman.
“Oh yes. We must have seen two hundred abandoned cars,” my Dad told him.
My brother and I almost collapsed with laughter at this. Perhaps, we had seen two and they could both have just been parked. For the rest of his life, we just had to mutter, “Two hundred,” to let him know that we doubted something he’d said.
I was probably four-years-old the first time I deliberately and consciously told a lie. I can date it that closely because until I was five, we lived in a house in South London that had a cherry tree in the back garden. There were always lots of birds in the branches of that tree.
I must have seen a photograph of a bird feeding from someone’s hand and I asked Mum how I could do that. She told me that if I stood in the same place at the same time every day holding food in my hand, the birds would get used to me and eventually, they would come and feed from my hand.
For two or three days, that’s what I did. On about day four, I came back into the house and informed my mother that a robin had flown down and eaten the bread from the palm of my hand.
It took 57 years, but Mum was right because I managed it eventually and here’s the proof:
The Leader of Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition told a lie in parliament recently, didn’t he? Yes, he did and you know he did.
In the late seventeenth century, the Earl of Halifax pronounced that, "A known liar should be outlawed in a well-ordered parliament.”
Jeremy Corbyn was referring to Theresa May when he clearly mumbled, “Stupid woman,” under his breath during Prime Minister’s Questions in December. He denied that’s what he said and insisted that what he’d actually mouthed was, “Stupid people.”
Oh, come on Jeremy! You could see the same television pictures that we all saw and you know that we know that your version was a flagrant lie.
Every expert lip reader who was asked for an opinion, agreed that the first word was “stupid” and all but one said that the second was “woman”. Not one of them said it was “people”.
What a pointless and unnecessary lie it was too. It might have been unparliamentary language but surely, if it’s acceptable to accuse a cabinet minister (Chris Grayling) of being incompetent, then calling a person “stupid” isn’t that much different and any sanction imposed would have been relatively trifling.
However, what made it a really senseless, ridiculous and stupid lie was that more than half the population probably agreed with him.
Friedrich Nietzsche, the German philosopher, once said to someone, “I'm not upset that you lied. I'm upset that from now on, I can't ever believe you.”
Corbyn has put himself into an impossible and irretrievably hopeless position in that, as a proven liar, we can never believe any promise he ever makes orally, or anything ever written in a Labour Party manifesto while he is leader.
He is obviously no intellectual but I hadn’t realised until then that he is actually very stupid.
I’m not going to spend much time on the case of the Labour MP who has just been sentenced to three months in prison for obstructing the course of justice.
In order to avoid something that I’ve experienced five times, a £60 fine and 3 points on her driving license, she told the police lie after lie.
She will lose her parliamentary seat and will almost certainly be struck off the roll as a solicitor. In future, she will be virtually unemployable. All for what? Calling her an idiot is too kind.
She has taken stupidity off the scale.
I tried to tell a joke once to Jo, a friend’s 7-year-old daughter but I gave up after she implied that I was a liar.
Me: A horse went into a pub.
Jo: A horse in a pub? Pubs don’t let horses in.
Me: This one did. Anyway, this horse….
Jo: Where was the pub?
Me: Kettering. So, this horse went into a pub and asked for a lemonade.
Jo: What? Horses can’t talk.
Me: Most can’t but this one could. The barman….
Jo: No horse can talk.
Me: No, you’re right. Horses can’t talk but you’ll have to imagine that this one could.
Jo: It’s not true then?
Me: It's a joke, so of course it’s not true. Just let me finish, OK?
Jo: OK.
Me: So, the barman said to the horse, “A lemonade? That will…….”
Jo: Is it a lie then?
That was the point at which I gave up and so Jo never got to hear that the barman, thinking that the horse would have no idea of the true price of a lemonade, charged him £30.
Then, when the barman remarked that they didn’t get many horses in this pub, the horse replied, “With lemonade at that price, I’m not surprised.”
Are you lying every time you tell a joke? Unless it’s a pun or wordplay, it would appear you are and so, by using that reasoning, all novels and most films are lies.
So, some lies are good and some can add to our collective happiness.
That’s good to know and rather reassuring because if I do ever lie, it will be a good and positive one.
Ramble:
In response to Jo saying, “No horse can talk,” I wrote this:
“No, you’re right….”
If I’d written:
“Yes, you’re right….”
The meaning would have been exactly the same. That’s strange isn’t it? One of them could be wrong but which?
