The truth? You can't handle the truth!

As a young schoolboy, one of the first lessons I learned was that you never snitch on fellow pupils. Whether you like them or not doesn’t matter. It is the biggest sin one can commit. I remember one unfortunate boy breaking this rule once and it resulted in him having his head flushed down the toilet. He was then given a good kicking after school and spent the rest of his poor miserable school life being despised by all the other kids and bullied.

Although honesty is supposed to be the best policy, there are certain times when it is necessary to keep secrets. Some things are just better left unsaid. For example, I would go out of business very quickly if my customers found out what I said about them behind their backs.

Secrets and lies are sometimes essential to maintain a healthy relationship. For example, whenever a female asks if they look fat in an item of clothing, the automatic answer is “no” even when it is always really “yes”. The divorce rate would quadruple if husbands were always honest with their wives.

I happen to know secrets about people. For example, I know why one of my friends doesn’t like one of my other friends but I would never reveal it was because they think they are boring, irritating, tight, selfish, self-centred and stupid. To reveal that would be irresponsible. To reveal that they also slept with the other one’s sister and thought she was crap in bed would make me just about the most despicable man alive.

Now put this on a global scale. If, for example, Mr Sarkozy made a racist comment about Barack Obama and then started spreading rumours about David Cameron’s fondness for sheep, he would inevitably upset them. Now, it’s not a good idea to upset people with big guns and other weapons capable of blowing up your country in less time than it takes to say “I surrender”.

This is the trouble with this whole Wikileaks scandal. While I’m sure we would all like to see a bit more transparency in governments and an end to the obvious corruption that is prevalent, there are some things that could be potentially damaging to International relations; things that could potentially lead to military conflict and result in the French having to manufacture millions more white flags.

The other issue I have with the Wikileaks thing is what they are doing is basically stealing. Also, am I really the only one who sees the irony of a bunch of thieves, whose sole purpose is to reveal secrets, being so secretive about its own organisation?

I have to confess I’ve never even looked at the Wikileaks website. Apart from having no real interest in secrets involving the U.S. secretary of defence thinking President Obama has a small penis or who actually shot JR, I’m not brave enough to launch the site in my web browser because I know I’ll have my computer tapped by the F.B.I. It’s bad enough that Google already know my every move without the U.S. government accusing me of being a terrorist. Given I’m probably already being monitored by the CIA for my constant abuse of America and its arrogant and hideously fat population, it is a risk I am just not willing to take.

Still, whilst I agree it is necessary to keep certain things secret (and certain governmental secrets are vital to maintain peace in the world) I am generally a believer in honesty being the best policy.

I pride myself on my bluntness and honesty. I also pride myself on my boyish good looks and charisma but that’s a different subject altogether.

Although my openness and bluntness has got me into trouble on several occasions, it has generally served me well. Nowhere is this more evident than in the business world.

You see, with well over a decade of experience in pretty much all aspects of the web, I have gained a rather vast catalogue of knowledge. As a result I also pride myself on being genius.

So when people contact me with questions and advice, I am more than happy to put my knowledge to good use. The trouble is that sometimes I have to disappoint people by stating that what they are asking for might sound easy but is actually very difficult and consequently costly. Sometimes I have to try and politely explain why an idea someone has isn’t very good and isn’t going to make them rich. Sometimes I have to point out that a brilliantly original idea someone has is neither brilliant nor original and has already been done by Google, Facebook and Twitter.

It comes down to the age-old problem of people not realising what goes on behind the scenes of a working website. Sometimes it comes down to people not considering that the general public don’t possess the same intricate knowledge of their business and need things explained in idiot speak. Sometimes it is just plain crazy. It shouldn’t be that difficult to understand that having grey text on a black background in a really small font isn’t very clever. It is common sense not to present people with a million different options in a variety of sub options if they choose one of the options of the options in the options sub-set under options. Keep things clean, presentable, accessible and simple!

Sadly, some people choose to ignore the advice given and will go elsewhere to get the job done instead. This is always sad for me because it not only means that I lose a valued customer (and a part of me dies a little inside every time that happens) but it also leaves me feeling helpless in the knowledge that they are wasting their time going to someone else who won’t be as honest, will offer to do everything they ask in order to get the money and, in most cases, fail to deliver.

So I’ll leave you with a few more truths that I need to get off my chest. I secretly enjoyed the film “The Ugly Truth”. I’m also ashamed to admit that “Made of Honour” made me laugh. Also, the bit I mentioned about my mate sleeping with my other mate’s sister is a complete lie. I made it all up. Honestly.