In search of the truth

Tony's funeral, the embarrassed Mr Seligman, the paper-bank man, Leonard the mall clarinettist - fact or fiction? It's up to YOU to decide!

Bacon once wrote, "'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer." That is a wonderful description of the state of mind of the editor of a busy newspaper, where people seldom stay for an answer, and never bother overmuch about the truth.

But how would you do as someone in charge of the nation's news? Would you be able to sniff out a good story? And be able to detect a bad 'un? Well, here's your chance to find out! Today, I bring you four stories from the last seven days, of which one is completely fictitious from beginning to end. When you have read them through, you have to decide which one is false. It's as simple as that! OK, here we go...

1. Secret negotiations are going on between No 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace to prevent any repetition of the embarrassing scenes about Tony Blair's function at the funeral of the Queen Mother.

Downing Street is particularly anxious to lay down now the proceedings to be adopted if and when the Queen dies, and Tony Blair is still in power. They want no argument later on about where Blair should deliver his funeral oration from, how long it should be and how many references he will be allowed to make to the amount of money he has poured into the NHS.

Buckingham Palace, for their part, are anxious to point out that it is not impossible that Tony Blair could predecease the Queen, and that then the question of the Queen's presence at Tony Blair's funeral will come up. At the moment, the Palace are firmly holding out for the Queen not having to attend at all. Discussions continue.

2. Victor Drummond Seligman, a postman in the Leeds area, became acutely embarrassed when he was a youth in the 1960s and discovered that his initials also stood for Venereal Diseases, so, as soon as he could, he changed his name by deed poll. Unfortunately, he changed it to Stanley Thomas Drummond Seligman, not realising that STD was also the new set of initials used to designate Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Gritting his teeth in the 1970s, he changed his name to Arthur Ian Drummond Seligman. His life was peaceful and calm for 10 years, until the arrival of Aids. He plans to change his name one last time, and is taking out thousands of pounds worth of insurance against the same thing happening again.

3. Mrs Hilda Babbage, a housewife living near Manchester, had taken a large pile of newspapers and magazines to the local paper bank last Monday when, just as she was throwing the last handful in, she realised she had also thrown away her husband's Sunday paper which he was keeping for later in the week. She reached in to get it back, and as she scrabbled among the papers she was amazed to uncover a human face. It was alive. It was attached to a body. It belonged to 23-year-old Arthur Potter, a homeless youth who had taken up residence in the paper bank.

"I found a panel loose in the back of the paper bank," he said, "and found I could get in and out unobserved. It was quite hard work burrowing in to get a small living space, but once I worked out how to stop the roof falling in, I was fine. It was warm enough, anyway. They say for warmth you should lag the roof with newspaper – well, I think I did that! News of the World is much the best", he added. Later it was announced he had signed to write his story for the News of the World.

4. In the mid-1990s a shopping centre in Swindon decided to try to drive away the gangs of youths which gathered there in the evening and made trouble, by putting out classical music on the PA system. The idea was that they would find the noise so objectionable, they would go away.

"It worked all right," said centre manager Roy Haynes. "They couldn't stand it. Well, they didn't mind Prokofiev and Britten too much because they thought it was film music, but Beethoven they hated, and Bach drove them wild!"

Not entirely, however. One youth, Leonard Drysdale, found himself listening to the music. It seemed more fulfilling than the rock he had grown up with. He started to hang round the shopping centre just to listen to it. He found an abandoned clarinet and got some lessons from a retired teacher. Such was Leonard's natural but undiscovered talent that within two years he had got a scholarship to the RAM. Now he is the clarinettist with the Grolsch Wind Quintet. Recently, in gratitude, he gave a free concert at the same shopping centre he had once hung out at. Sadly, it was broken up by local gangs of youths, who caused £200,000 worth of damage.

Well? That's right! There was absolutely no truth in No 1, the Tony Blair story! Nor was there truth in any of the others. Honestly, you can't trust anyone these days.