Driving back from a meeting in the Wicklow mountains, bouncing along a bog road, I listened to the ten o’clock news on the BBC. The Diana inquest gets more bizarre.

She was murdered through a conspiracy of the intelligence forces of the United States, Britain and France, together with the British Prime Minister, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. (I’m not sure why the Freemasons, Opus Dei, the Mafia, and the New World Order weren’t thrown in for good effect, together with aliens maybe?)

I wondered at the BBC even bothering to report such drivel. It was reassuring to hear that the BBC reporter who challenged the witness on the court steps was called a “bloody idiot” and was told that he worked for MI6.

It was a cheerful evening and it was not to be spoilt by a delusional man in London. The words of an old Makem and Clancy song came to mind. It’s called, appropriately enough, The Liar

I was born about ten thousand years ago
In Bellmullet in the County of Mayo
It was me that chased the vermin, while St. Patrick preached the sermon
And I’ll whoop the man that says it isn’t so

Singing rightful too-ra-laddie too-ra-lee
There is no one who can tell a lie like me
You can search until you tire, you won’t find a bigger liar
I’ve been lying since the dawn of history

I saw Eve go pickin’ apples off a tree
She came over and she offered one to me
I turned and said, “Dear madam, go try your luck with Adam
I’m going home to have some fish and chips and tea.”

I saw Delilah cuttin’ Samson’s hair
She snipped away until his head was bare
When he couldn’t run away, she married him next day
And they opened a barber shop in Clare

With King Billy at the Boyne I heard them call
On his followers to follow till they fall
Then he said, “We’ll win quite easy, and we’ll canonize, young Paisley”
Then he up and sang a verse of Derry’s Walls

It was during World War II I met them all
There was Roosevelt and Churchill and De Gaulle
Then one day I nearly fainted, I was having my house painted
There was Hitler hanging paper in the hall