HOT THIS SEASON
Bright, exciting orange with a light spray of lamb's fluids
Wide, striking collars with a cheeky windmill attachment which acts as a warning garotte if warn in unfashionably gusty locales
Trousers cut off at the knees, and the knees themselves broken with lengths of pipe
Loose waistbands, but crushingly tight belts
Brown suede shoes, worn on the hands |
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| Many of the letters I open each morning speak of a desire to lie, or to lie better. As I come by these letters via a contact at the postal sorting office and am merely searching through them for cash or compromising details which might form the basis of a blackmailing engagement, I'm confident that they represent a valid straw poll of the feeling of our Great Nation's people. I have therefore determined in my capacity as Dissembler Emeritus of a Famous University to provide a basic introduction to lying at no cost to yourselves. It's best to begin with a few simple exercises to warm yourself up. A walk through town offers the ideal multitude of opportunities. Pay a visit to the barber's shop and, as he holds up the mirror so you can see his completed work, say, "Yes. That's great. Thanks." Express sympathy and interest when approached by persons bearing petitions; introduce in conversation your support for a rise your income's tax to ease the lives of the elderly; tell a constable that flower-seller stole your watch. These easy, everyday manoeuvres will loosen you up for the next stage, which begins at noon sharp tomorrow (Tuesday). |
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| In the second phase of our programme, we're going to work on your delivery skills. An affable, easy mendacity is our goal. Try not to worry too much about the practical details of your specific untruth for the moment, that's not important. We just want you to reach a stage where you're completely comfortable with barefaced deceit in a broad range of social settings with people from all backgrounds. Facial tics, shuffling and the like often trouble the novice liar, so let's take the physical out of the equation. Telephone one of the many companies encouraging you towards litigation for some sort of medical compensation. Invent some grievance - you've lost a toe in a cattle grid, say - and see if you can convince them to take your case before feigning a spasm and hanging up. These companies have many telephone advisors and usually freephone numbers, so you can do this time and again to build your confidence. Try to sell a more unlikely story each time. If they believed you about the toe, next time make it an ear. Say a traumatic incident you witnessed in a well-known chain of booksellers left you unable to taste apples. Tell how a hard object you pulled from your mouth after receiving a filling from a private dentist turned out to be the knuckle of St Thomas that went missing from a church in Hungary during the Nazi occupation. If you have a computer, assert that jagged, incompletely dissolved coffee granules have left you with an artificial larynx, conducting the conversation by holding the receiver next to the keyboard while you type something, then next to the printer as you print it out, then reading the message in a perfectly normal tone of voice: thus practising verbal and written falsehoods at the same time. Keep making these calls every ten minutes or so for the next couple of days, then join me back here where we'll be going over some advanced points with my special celebrity guest, Mr Lorne Greene. |
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| Hello, and welcome to the fourth part of our introduction to lying. By now you should be fully competent with our set task from last time: hanging around the pharmacy counter in a large store wearing a makeshift name tag and advising customers towards random medications applied in arbitrary ways. This should have boosted your confidence and improvisational skills but, fun as it is, will not really improve your material situation. Now you have the rough abilities needed for lying effectively, you should look to build lies into your life in a way that will really make a difference. Just a few minutes a day is all that's needed - convincingly asserting that there is a knife in your pocket, for example, or the unshowy impersonation at a hotel of a remaining Kray can really make a difference to how others see you and, most importantly, how you feel about yourself. If you practise conscientiously and always keep focused, you'll soon find you can obtain money from even total strangers with little more than a few casual words. For the handsomely bound and fully annotated version of this course, send £14.99 to my trading address. No cheques, please. |
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IN DISGRACE
Crags
Disc
Grade
Cried
Cad |
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