It is my proposition that a poet, or even some lesser writer, should be able to make a sound case for virtually anything. After all, if you are a writer, then you should be able to swiftly marshal the facts, array them in the most advantageous order, and unleash them upon the credulous community. Indeed, given that you are a writer, not a historian, then there is no obligation binding you to simply setting out facts. You are a writer, you can make things up, this is what writers do!

I like to visualise the writer as a craftsman with words as his tools. But in case you think this is a matter of high-flown rhetoric let me give you an example of how I prevented a most unseemly incident, made one man very happy and brought hours of simple pleasure to the patrons at one of Port Naain’s less…