Wow. Now I know why you always find me in the kitchen at parties. Apparently, I've been ignoring the golden rule of adult conversation: make stuff up. Lying, we used to call it, but I guess in the modern world we've moved on.
This was Lord Triesman's only transgression, we are now told, sagely. He made up a whole lot of rubbish to impress a girl, said the World Cup was being fixed by Spain with Russia in cahoots, had not a scrap of evidence to support these claims, and then the little minx placed it in the public domain. How inconsiderate.
Did she not understand these were private lies that Triesman was telling, lies not intended for scrutiny? And we all do it, I am informed by a whole raft of talking heads (although why we should believe anything they say after an admission like that, heaven only knows).
The logic goes that catch any of us in an unguarded moment and we would be spinning a yarn of half-baked innuendo just to get into somebody's good books. It makes one wonder why we can count the decent British films on one hand every year, when there are so many masters of invention out there, wasting all their best lines on the new trainee from accounts.
And there is no correlation, and you would be a fool to infer one, between making stuff up and having to resign, and not making stuff up and keeping your job. Ever wondered, for instance, how often a guy like Richard Scudamore of the Premier League has been asked to spill the beans about the Quest investigation or the Carlos Tevez transfer? Ever wondered why all we know is the information already in the public domain? It is because when you reach a certain level in a profession, if you are at all aware, and Scudamore is, you accept it is not sensible to trade in idle speculation. Certainly not in the modern world when everybody possessing a mobile telephone with an in-built camera and microphone fancies a career as a citizen journalist.
I feel sorry for Triesman, I genuinely do. It must be horrible to be betrayed by a person you considered a friend. I don't agree with the taping of private conversations, either, unless it is to prove a criminal act. However, I do think there are a lot of people that need to get off their high horse over this.
Any journalist will tell you that the first thing people want to know if you get talking at the airport carousel is all the material that isn't in the newspaper. Not just harmless summer transfer rumours, but the latest internet slur or the real reason a certain person is not considered England manager material. They want the libellous stuff. In the modern climate, more fool you if you serve it up. It could be on a website messageboard with your name as the source within minutes.
I did a little gig for the marketing department of Associated Newspapers recently; just a question and answer session, nothing special. Early on it was all ethics and morality: should the newspapers have published the John Terry-Wayne Bridge story, knowing it could harm England's World Cup chances? By the end, after a few drinks, the mood had changed. Who were the biggest boozers and shaggers I'd ever met? I gave them only the obvious names. Sir Trevor Brooking and Bobby Charlton. Not that I'm one for idle tittle-tattle, as you well know.