I know I do; even if it's only by omission. The only people who get offended by this generalisation are the worst kind of liars - the kind that are not even conscious of the pathological liar inside them.

Does anybody remember the Hollywood flick Liar Liar in which the main character, played by Jim Carrey, finds himself unable to tell even the most innocuous of fibs after his son's birthday wish comes true?

After a session of a carnal nature with his girlfriend, he responds, "I've had better" when she inquires what it was like for him. Let us agree that none of us would like to gain this affliction, yes? Okay, now that we have established that you're all a bunch of filthy, rotten liars, I have a question. Why are we all so harsh on those members of society whose lies are hung out and exposed in public then? Take Bill Clinton's "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" whopper. What married man do you know would willingly admit to infidelity? The same goes for Richard Nixon, the Watergate liar.

Not that we don't have champion liars in our midst - of the calibre of Leonard Chuene, for instance. I do not know that I would personally want to live in a world with 100% truth. My four-year-old was standing behind me the other day when, in a moment of ill-advised honesty, he blurted: 'Did you take a shower today, Baba? Your fat bum really stinks." Need I point out that this shrunk my already low self-esteem?

All of this is leading up to the fact that I failed a polygraph test the other day. I suppose this makes me an official liar. I recently joined the Kaya FM 95.9 breakfast show where I contaminate the airwaves with pointless, insipid drivel every morning as a sidekick to the main host. Kaya FM is running a 'social experiment' called Two Strangers and a Wedding, a reality show which will culminate in two strangers actually getting married.

As part of the show they brought in a polygraph expert, Trevor Henn, to conduct lie detector tests on the contestants. And, just to spice things up, I volunteered to take one myself. Now you would think that with nothing at stake a polygraph would be a breeze. And it was until the bastard started strapping me up to his machine. All of a sudden my mouth dried up like a Namib Desert gecko's droppings. My hands became clammier than a cigarette butt in the rain. Even a warm-up question like "Are you sitting here in the studio?" gave me a rush of blood to the head.

I found myself thinking: "What if I'm not really sitting here?" Trevor asked me eight questions and after confessing to serious, heinous crimes such as cheating on ex-girlfriends and bribing JMPD officers, I emerged on the other side as being only 75% truthful, much to my dismay. Apparently I had lied like Joost to Amor when asked if I regularly fibbed to my mother and whether I had ever embellished my credentials in a work situation.

Considering the fact that I had even admitted to having pitched up to work drunk, these "lies" were also a shocking revelation to me. It didn't seem likely that I could have lied subconsciously. My only consolation is that while "researching" this column I discovered that, pretty much universally, a lie detector is not admissible in court. The main reason advanced is that the overwhelming majority of the scientific community believes that a polygraph test is hocus pocus mumbo jumbo. See mom?

In the words of moviemaker Ricky Gervais: "A world without lies would be a terrible world ... without fiction."

In an endorsement of embellishment for the sake of entertainment, no less pious a man than St Augustine of Hippo considered "jocose lying" quite acceptable.

Now here's a conundrum for you, dear reader. According to a polygraph test, I am a liar. How can you believe anything I write? Take this very column, for instance. How much of it is true and how much of it is rotten lies? Was there even a polygraph test or did I just make that up to exploit the liberties extended to me by a Catholic saint?