ICONS OF COMEDY: THE COMPULSIVE LIAR

Did anyone see Andy Dawson in The Guardian magazine at the weekend? We probably can't afford him now...

I don't care who you are, prince or pauper, you've almost certainly met this week's icon of comedy. You might have encountered him (and it's almost always a him) at school, at work or down the pub when you were accidentally on your own for a bit.
 
He'll have sucked you into his wonky world against your will, then fed your mind with stuff and nonsense about his imaginary life. Obviously, it's all complete and utter shite and sometimes it's hard not spray tea into his face as you guffaw wildly at his bare-faced bullshit.
 
He's the Compulsive Liar and practically everybody knows one. If you don't, just refer to the character of Jay from The Inbetweeners. He's the one who boasted that the last time he went camping he was attacked by a cow, put it down with one punch, as well as its mate who was watching. The cow then stood on its hind legs and started squirting him with milk from its tits.
 
What's possibly the worst thing about these deluded individuals is that they think that we believe all the guff that spews out of their gobs, that we are taken in by their shite. It's a tragedy wrapped in a mystery.
 
Recently, a website has been launched devoted to these tales of fictional fantasia. www.billybullshit.com is a one-stop shop of tales recounted by the victims of their telling, a place for the sane and rational to share the utter crap they've been fed by compulsive liars over the years.
 
For example, there's the bloke who explained away a shiner by claiming he'd stuck a wasp in his eye for a bet (the same man also told of fighting off the advances of Romanian prostitutes on a cruise who were dying to get a piece of him because he was so great at karate).
 
Then there¹s the bloke (remember, it's almost always a bloke) who claimed that if your parachute fails, it isn't the initial fall that kills you but the 'secondary bounce'. His advice? Hold on to the grass when you land, if you can.
 
This one could run and run....