Erin Pizzey and the Streisand Effect

In the spirit of the many column inches written this week on the subject of lying about books you have read, I have to come clean and mention that while I own Andrew Marr's A History of Modern Britain I haven't actually read it yet. My excuse would have been that it needs a specific mood to start such a book. Well now I have a reason to read it if only for one single sentence - that and the fact that any current unsold stock has been recalled for pulping - Amazon resellers will be doing good business won't they? To avoid any need for you to read it I will just say that Arthur bruised his upper arm.

Why would anyone lie about having read nineteen-eighty-four? I can understand it about Ulysses having started it myself several times (and having waded through a good percentage of its stream of consciousness, while following a completely different one of my own) but nineteen-eighty-four drags you in from the beginning.