Another one...
I worked with a guy of Turkish Cypriot extraction who told us his family had had extensive property holdings in Cyprus when the war forced them to leave and they lost everything. Not at all implausible and we all felt some degree of sympathy for him. But then there was the Northern Irish branch of his family, who were all massacred when masked gunmen burst into their house and shot twenty-odd people dead, the only survivor being a baby in a cradle that was knocked over (again, no media record, despite the fact we all worked for a national newspaper).

He also claimed to have had a personal hand in the invention of several patents (the Sinclair C5 and Amstrad computers being among them, I seem to remember), all of which culminated in him being ripped off for the rights, with no redress.

And to cap it all he was the spitting image of Viz's Aldridge Prior, the Incorrigible Liar - which of course gave us all no end of amusement.

When he was eventually taken to task over the veracity of his stories he complained to management about our 'racist' behaviour. He could have got a 'million-pound settlement for that, you know. It's a good job I'm not vindictive.' Two syllables too many, we thought.

Good job he didn't see the Photoshopping going the rounds at the time - especially the one of him flying the Queen Mother into the twin towers, after he told us he was a qualified pilot ('Are you sure this is the way to Balmoral, driver?').

Treatment of people like him inevitably becomes cruel, since their total lack of self-awareness eventually just produces contempt in others. The line between pathos and bathos might be blurred and indistinct but it's generally obvious when the line's been crossed. Sad, really.

Still fucking funny, though. What a twat.
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 1:45, 1 reply)

*hopeless

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Mon 9 Jun 2014, 9:28, closed)