Crooks can spot crooks

It has been brought to my attention that I have a tendency to interrogate people and that this is not the endearing quality I imagined it to be.

- BEN TROVATO

Let me point out that I don't go up to strangers in the street and begin questioning them, or approach someone at a neighbouring table in a restaurant and take him by the throat when I suspect he is speaking less than the truth. That would be the actions of a crazy person.

Instead, I apparently question certain people who share my so-called life a little too closely. For this, I blame my training as a journalist.

I also blame shameless agents provocateur like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg for making me don a metaphorical hazmat suit and activate my internal bullshit detector before wading into the septic, crocodile-infested swamp we once knew as social media.

I was married to a woman who was barely on nodding terms with the truth and, as a consequence, am inclined to ask more questions than might otherwise be necessary.

If there's a discrepancy or something doesn't quite add up in someone's story, no matter how banal it may be, I am on it like a cane rat on a baby dove.

This doesn't always go down well, especially if the person is lying. Or telling the truth.

The other day, after fiercely fighting a rearguard action against yet another unwarranted (or so she claimed) inquisition, the Dirty Blonde suggested I should have been a prosecutor.