World's Biggest Liar is an annual competition for telling

lie A lie is an assertion that is believed to be false, typically used with the purpose of deceiving or misleading someone. The practice of communicating lies is called lying. A person who communicates a lie may be termed a liar. Lies can be inter ...

s, held in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. Competitors from around the world have five minutes to tell the biggest and most convincing lie they can. Competition rules bar the use of props or scripts.

Politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

s and

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

s are not allowed to enter the competition, because "they are judged to be too skilled at telling porkies".

History

The World's Biggest Liar competition is held every November at the Bridge Inn,

Santon Bridge Santon Bridge is a small village in Copeland, Cumbria, England, at a bridge over the River Irt. The civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation whi ...

, in memory of Will Ritson (1808–1890), a

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

landlord A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant (also a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). When a juristic person is in this position, the ...

from Wasdale, who was well known for his "

tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...

s". One of Ritson's most famous fibs was that turnips grew so large in the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

that people carved them out to make cow sheds.

Recent competitions

In 2003, Abrie Krueger of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

was named the world's biggest liar after telling a story about how he was crowned King of the Wasdale Valley. This marked the first time that a foreigner had won the competition, which was marked with allegations of Krueger having cheated. A

Bishop of Carlisle The Bishop of Carlisle is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Carlisle in the Province of York. The diocese covers the county of Cumbria except for Alston Moor and the former Sedbergh Rural District. The see is in the city of Car ...

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." Comedian

Sue Perkins Susan Elizabeth Perkins (born 22 September 1969) is an English actress, broadcaster, comedian, presenter and writer. Originally coming to prominence through her comedy partnership with Mel Giedroyc in ''Mel and Sue'', she has since become best ...

won the competition in 2006, marking the first time in the event's history that a woman won the competition. Her winning tall tale was about how the

ozone layer The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in rela ...

became damaged, ice caps melted and people had to be taken to work on camels. In 2008, John "Johnny Liar" Graham won the competition for the seventh time after telling the judges a story of a magical ride to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

in a

wheelie bin A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" a ...

that went under the sea. The previous year Graham's winning lie was that a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

German submarine had invaded Britain to capture

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...

decoders. Paul Burrows from

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

won the competition in 2010. He told a story of how the lakes and mountains of the Cumbrian countryside had been stolen from the county of Essex, leaving it as flat as it is today. The 2011 winner was Glen Boylan. His story involved betting on a

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

race with

Prince Charles Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...

(who advised him to remove the shell to make it more aerodynamic) and losing because his opponents cheated with battery-operated snails. 2013 saw Mike Naylor win for the third time of his Lying career. Naylor, a 57-year-old man from Wasdale told a story about Wassie, the monster that lives in Wastwater, the local lake. He is the nephew of Joss Naylor, better known as a fell runner, but himself also a former winner of the competition. In 2019, Phillip Gate from Workington won with a story about how Cumbria is rich not only in coal deposits but also sugar, which is the reason for the county's large jam production.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

WBL Official WebsiteBridge Inn link on RitsonBBC
Culture in Cumbria Deception Annual events in England