The World’s Biggest Liar Contest
You’re Not Going to Believe This
Making history for being the World’s Biggest Liar isn’t an accomplishment a lot of people would want to be known for. But for Cleator Moor man, Mike Naylor, it’s all just a bit of fun.
If you’ve entered this year’s World’s Biggest Liar contest, you might be up against four times winner Mike Naylor, who let’s face it, can tell a pretty convincing porkie-pie.
When I called Mike for a chat ahead of this year’s competition, he told me I shouldn’t believe a word he says.
On winning the decade’s old competition four times since 2004, 60-year-old Mike said: “
“It all started for me when I ended up writing a story for Howard Christie about how Wasdale was going to become independent from Westminster based on an economy of water, and he went and won it.
“The following year my son entered and I wrote the story for him, but he lost his bottle so I got up in my wellies and boiler suit and did it for him.”
Mike managed to convince the audience and the panel of judges that he was from South Africa, but thanks to a Teach Yourself Cumbrian course he was able to address the gathering in Cumbrian.
He said a local firm called Bang! No Folk Left (BNFL) were flooding Wasdale and the Herdwick sheep would be replaced by fish farming, monitored by new Defra, “or should we say Daftra” organisation, the Ministry of Underwater Fisheries and Food (MUFF).
Mike added: “People might think I’m a horrible person when they see the title ‘liar’ but it is all just a laugh and a little bit of fun.”
Using his stage name ‘the Monkey Liar’, Mike’s winning fib last year told the tale of how he discovered his royal ancestry after cutting himself shaving and being told by paramedics that he had royal blood.
The packed out venue were treated to the hilarious story which featured a trip to Buckingham palace.
He said: “Last year’s story was a really good one. I do get a little bit nervous and each year it is getting harder and harder because so many people are entering. It attracts so many people, and people spend a lot of time working on their stories, so it gets tougher and tougher to beat.
“I might enter it this year; I’ll have to have a little think about it.”
When asked what makes the perfect lie, Mike said: “It’s got to be topical, lighthearted, and most of all half believable. When I’m learning a story I keep reciting it out loud over and over again for about a fortnight before so I get it locked in my mind; people must think I’m daft.”
Every November, the conference room at The Bridge Inn at Santon is fit to burst with locals and visitors all waiting to compete to tell the tallest tale. In past years the competition has attracted ‘liars’ from as far away as Sweden and South Africa.
The contest all started back in the era 1808-1890 when famous local fibber Will Ritson was the landlord of the Wasdale Inn. He always kept his customers enthralled with stories of the folk heritage of the area and insisted that all his tales were true.
He once claimed that the local turnips were so big that people had to “quarry” into them for their Sunday lunch, and they could then be used as sheds to house the Herdwick sheep from the fells.
Today, contestants have up to five minutes to tell the biggest and most convincing lie they can.
Entry is barred to journalists, estate agents, lawyers, double glazing salesmen and politicians on the grounds that they are deemed “professional liars” and anyone who wins three years in succession are barred from entering the following year.
A Bishop of Carlisle was supposed to have once won the competition with the shortest-ever speech; he simply said, “I have never told a lie in my life”.
In 2006 the Great British Bake-off host and comedienne Sue Perkins became the first ever woman to win the competition. In her typical dead-pan humour she told a story about how the Ozone Layer was really destroyed.
Tickets are now on sale for the World’s Biggest Liar contest which will take place at its usual venue, The Bridge Inn at Santon Bridge on Thursday November 17. Entries can be made on the evening of the competition providing a ticket has been purchased.
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