THE VIEW FROM HERESOCIAL Island Dinner Party is my variation on the long-running Desert Island Discs. You choose guests instead of music, with endless fantasy fun as you slam the door in the face of those you don’t want to meet over the vichyssoise.
I am not asking Gen Sir Mike Jackson to my dinner party. This gravel-voiced former chief of the general staff seems to me a most unsympathetic character, who would usurp the conversation with his opinions and jab his fork at you if you didn’t agree.
He certainly ditched his chances of an invitation when, during an interview about the Bloody Sunday inquiry, he replied in answer to an allegation about his own role during the events: "I don’t lie."
His words bore the distinct undertone of brusque non-negotiability. Not only did he not lie during the inquiry (and we must, of course, accept that he didn’t) but he didn’t ever lie.
This is extremely unlikely. It’s almost certainly a porky in itself. It is incontrovertible that we all lie, for a number of reasons, not all of them bad.
Studies show people (that’s all of us, you, me and Sir Mike Jackson) lying on a regular basis, at least once a day and possibly as much as twice every ten minutes. Most of our fibs are pretty minor but they’re still fibs.
"We use lies to grease the wheels of social discourse," says University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert Feldman.
"It’s socially useful to tell lies."
So we lie to be kind, to make a dull story more interesting or, let’s admit it, to make life a bit easier.
Society would be intolerable without lies.
"Did you enjoy your dinner, Sir Mike?" Oh Lord, here we go, here’s the man who doesn’t lie.
"Harrumph, harrumph, no I bloody didn’t, it was absolutely ghastly, the food was vile and you looked dreadful in that frock."
So he won’t be coming. Perhaps he really doesn’t lie. But his insistence on being a whopper-free zone brings to mind the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson — "The louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons."
Not, of course, that I’m suggesting Sir Mike would pinch my cutlery. But I’m not taking any chances.
I shall, however, ask the chief of the defence staff, Sir Jock Stirrup, purely on account of his fabulous name.
I don’t want him to say much. I shall seat him on my right and he can tell me I’m the most gorgeous hostess in town and then get on with his prawn cocktail.
High commissions — and even higher charges
WHILE looking for a number in the section marked "A-Z listing of local businesses and services" in the Island’s phone book, I found a surprising entry.
Sandwiched between offshore-technology company Zeta PDM (Daish Way, Newport) and Zip-Up Towers (Carpenters Road, St Helens) was the Zimbabwe High Commission (no address given, but one assumes it’s not in Sandown).
The number given was for the commission’s "Official Visa Information Line."
I expect His Excellency Mr Gabriel Mharadze Machinga, the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary representing Zimbabwe in London, has been inundated with calls from the Island requesting visas for his delightful country and thus needed a special entry in our phone book.
There are a few similar entries. Thanks to their inclusion as a "local business or service", we can also contact the Kazakhstan official visa information line.
Now, I know you’re all desperate for a Kazakhstan visa or a trip to Mr Mugabe’s fun-packed country.
But beware. In every case, the accompanying small print tells you the numbers are premium rate and that "higher charges apply."
I bet they do. Oh, Mr Mugabe, what a sneaky trick. Having clobbered everyone in Zimbabwe, you’re now trying to clobber the Island and shore up your economy by luring us on to your premium-rate visa line.