Steve, his parents' car, the M25 and other shenanigans
I don't know why they do it. I can understand that people are often insecure about the way others perceive them, I can understand that we may often embellish stories and exaggerate details for a better response from our audience. What I don't understand is why people fabricate ridiculous and incredible stories from thin air...and then defend them when challenged.

We knew Steve at secondary school. One of Steve's wonderful claims to fame was that, despite his fairly unassuming appearance, he was an absolute hotshot behind the wheel of a car. At the tender age of 15, in Britain, there was no way he could hold a UK driving licence, which he freely admitted, but it wasn't inconceivable that he'd maybe spent a bit of time driving a car round some isolated spot under the supervision of a friend or relative, and just gathered an over-inflated opinion of his own ability.

Feeling that this was not winning him enough admiration, Steve felt the need to expand upon his point with anecdotal examples of his driving prowess. The first howler was his claim that he'd managed to nip twice round the M25 in "about half an hour." Not satisfied with simply pointing out that the M25 is not a complete loop, one of us decided to further rubbish his claim with a simple calculation:
The M25 is approximately 117 miles long.
Twice round this would therefore be 234 miles.
Steve's journey time was "about half an hour."
Steve would have to have travelled at 468mph.
The speed limit of the M25 does not exceed 70mph.
For further perspective, the speed of sound in dry air is 768mph.

To be fair, once questioned on how he could travel at over half the speed of sound in his parents' modest family car, Steve backed down. Well, a little:
"Oh, well maybe it was only once, then."
So that'll be 234mph then, Steve?

His other superb anecdote involved an argument with his parents. Apparently after a flaming row with them one night, he stormed out the house, picking up their car keys on the way and started up the car.
"I was so angry I just decided to drive down to Bristol. Motorway was fairly clear at that time of night."
Was it really. How close did you get to the sound barrier this time, Steve?
"The police actually pulled me over, so I was shitting myself 'cause obviously I don't have a licence..."
That would be a fairly good reason to worry, yes.
"...but they just wanted to complement me on how good my driving was."

A short one to finish - not car-related this time. During an afternoon out with us in the town, Steve received a phone call. Not a lot was said, but he returned to us with a panic-stricken expression and blurted out,
"I've got to go - Ben's been stabbed!"
And off he ran. Ben was Steve's friend, none of us knew him that well, but one of us happened to have his number. Rest assured Ben was very surprised when we called to ask whether he was alright, and, if he were actually sporting any fresh stab wounds, seemed to be taking it very well. Surely if Steve just wanted to get away from us he could have come up with a better excuse than that?
(LongJohnBaldry, Sat 15 Jan 2011, 15:17, 5 replies)

Of course, the M25 IS a complete loop. Just sayin'
(Sammyhaswoefullyneglectedyou, Sat 15 Jan 2011, 17:38, closed)

Sorry but it isn't
The dartford crossing and a few miles either side of it is the A282
(Obi wanker nobi Its not a bug, its an unexpected feature, Sat 15 Jan 2011, 18:13, closed)

it's a loop
you dont leave the main carriageway at dartford, its the same road, just with a different name coz Dartford is dead posh and didnt want to have to be ON the M25. Originally they wanted to call it QE2 Boulevard


so ner
(a girl called harry, Mon 17 Jan 2011, 14:32, closed)

Hang on, did Steve then go to university at Swansea?
(just pouring lizards, Sat 15 Jan 2011, 18:37, closed)

I honestly don't know what happened to him
(And for the sake of internet anonymity, his name wasn't really Steve.)
(LongJohnBaldry, Sat 15 Jan 2011, 18:51, closed)