That stuff about puddles the other day, you remember, the puddles of glory, with Dot and the late lamented Radbod, that was all true, every single word of it, I didn’t make it up, I swear, I swear on my mother’s life, and you may say, well, your mother’s been dead these twenty-one years so you can swear on her life until you are blue in the face but that won’t convince me of anything, there is no point swearing on something that’s gone, in this case your mother’s life, Ghent 1925 to Goodmayes 1994, and in any case you’ve written about your mother before, that she had the voice of a corncrake and taught you to sing Essay On Pigs by Hans Werner Henze and believed she was turning into a corncrake, and there was not a jot of truth in any of that, you made it up out of thin air, for comic purposes presumably, so swearing on her life now that it is long extinguished is a worthless act and gives me no reason to believe in that stuff about puddles of glory and Dot and Radbod, both of whom I have no doubt you also made up out of thin air and for presumably comic effect, but I’m not laughing, you may say all that, to my face, in a reasonable tone of voice or, more likely, betraying a certain mild exasperation, and I will listen calmly to the charges you lay against me, staunch, staunch in my righteousness, and then I will pick up a spade and bash you over the head with it, as punishment for doubting my word, ever, even though I may contradict myself, or make outrageous claims, or tell obvious fibs, because, let’s face it, we are not going to get anywhere unless you accept every last syllable that drops from my lips as God’s own truth, immutable and incandescent, for I am your Oracle and you shall not doubt me, is that clear?, and here is another bash of the spade on your head to drive my point home, thank you very much, that will be fifty pence please, or more if you can afford it, just put your coins in the tin, and every penny I collect will be spent on flowers for my mother’s grave.