When some Americans were admiring the lovely soda bread in a house the other day, they said nobody made bread like the Irish. I waited for the woman who was serving it to tell them it was the stoneground you buy in the supermarket and they could buy it at the airport on the way home. Then, with a roaring in my ears I heard her say that it was nothing, she just threw in a handful of this and a handful of that like her grandmother had done.
And they all beamed at her and thought she was wonderful. I beamed at her and thought she was a liar.
A friend of ours set up as a smartish sort of dressmaker in London, she made velvet jackets for people and put her label in the back of them. She explained to me that jackets were a good way of advertising yourself, because people didn't usually take off their dresses or skirts at functions and this was the only way people might see her name.
One of her more elegant friends removed the label in her jacket and put in a Harrods one instead. The friend thought it was an inverted compliment and the dressmaker thought she was a liar.
In a pub on Monday a couple were having a bank holiday drink and the bar owner asked them who they were voting for. His daughter was a known supporter of Adi Roche.
The couple were loud in their support. Adi would surprise everyone, they knew dozens who were voting for her. The man behind the bar was pleased, he said he'd tell his daughter. It would give Adi a boost.
The couple left and got into their car which had a Mary McAleese sticker. He saw them from the window. They thought they were being diplomatic; he thought they were a pair of liars.
At a book launch an author mentioned in passing a book she had written which none of us had read, or even heard of. She wasn't pausing to ask what we had thought of it or anything. There would be no interrogation on its subject matter.
Most of us gave a kind of lying murmur, there was a sort of mumble of words. "Oh yes, yes indeed, I know, great success, marvellous idea. I remember it, that did very well . . ." The kind of comfortable noncommittal sort of wallpaper that we have all heard and nobody asks any questions.
One of the number, however, asked straight out what it was called, what it was about, how much it cost and how it had done.
She thought the rest of us were liars, we thought she was being unnecessarily frank in forcing details of something less than successful into the public arena to be tutted over by merciless rivals.
The woman was going to a wedding. Her ex-husband was going to be there with his new wife. She had what she called a New Look, and she was generally delighted with her outfit. But she lacked complete confidence, so she brought the hat along for a few Impartial Observers to see. It was very expensive and what she nervously described as a bit outlandish.
Now I didn't see it because I wasn't one of her Impartial Observers, but I did see a picture of it. To my mind it was the hat for a jokey 18-yearold playing at being a glamour puss. But seriously, what do I know? I just didn't like it for the wipetheir-eyes occasion for which it was intended.
So she asked the Observers did they think it was mutton dressed as lamb, or what. And although they didn't like it, they said they did. They said that she felt so good and young in it, that it would have been counterproductive to say no. So they were false friends and liars or else supportive friends and kind people. One or the other. They told her it was great and she's wearing it.
The shop is untidy and badly managed and it's not any cheaper than anywhere else. It doesn't give credit or anything to attract that kind of customer. The place is a bit grubby, the staff not particularly helpful and it's not doing well.
The couple who own it are beginning to say in stunned tones that they may have to sell up. They can't understand it. They are in such a good position, they were always told that the site was everything in terms of merchandising. It doesn't seem to be nowadays. They are bewildered by it.
The people in the town who like them and who still shop there and who are now getting this hard-luck story are behaving like liars. They say to the couple that business will surely pick up, that people tire of modern places, and that old friends are the best friends. They say this because life is short and no shopkeepers could bear to hear that their business is shabby and poorly kept and will eventually and deservedly go down the tubes.
They are not liars, they say, they are kind people in a small country town facing the fact that these shopkeepers are not people who will be galvanised and motivated into action by harsh if well-meant advice.
I have a friend whose mother-in-law always brings the children liquorice allsorts. As it happens, the children hate them. The grandmother is not going to know this unless someone tells her, but the more little multicoloured packets she has delivered to false oohs and aahs of gratitude, the more difficult it is to tell her.
This is the belief of the mother, who thinks that all children should learn to eat a little of everything and learn to put up with what may well turn out to be a future of unwanted gifts and disappointments. It is not her eight-year-old son's view. He says to her that she is telling granny a lie, that everyone spits them out as soon as they get out of the room, and he asks why they can't tell her what they really want. She has to go into a sweet shop hasn't she? You're not meant to lie about other things, why about this?
Some friends went out for a meal last weekend. They thought it was going to be an inexpensive night out, but by the time everyone had ordered starters and desserts, and waved away the notion of having the house carafe it turned out to be over £30 a head.
For people who had expected to pay half that, it was a huge disappointment. They did have inklings of how it was turning out when they saw the prices on the menu. But one Villain said "Oh come on let's go for it, let's treat ourselves." The others ate and drank on, but full of resentment. And when the Villain, who is basically good natured, said, "Oh dear, was that all too dear?", they decided they would be liars. No, they said, it was grand, lovely, well worth it.
True stories. I'd lie in three of them. Everyone else I asked said they'd lie in them all. Who can you trust nowadays?