It’s wrong, I know, but there’s something thrilling about a really humungous lie.It’s wrong, I know, but there’s something thrilling about a really humungous lie. Consider, for example, the sheer brass neck of Alan McIlwraith — or Captain Sir Alan McIlwraith KBE, DSO, MC, as he prefers to be known. This mysterious young war hero was pictured recently in the celebrity magazine No. 1 sipping champagne at a charity function. He was dressed in full military regalia, his breast clattering with medals, accompanied by a woman described as his wife, ‘Lady Shona’. Sir Alan’s decorations were, he claimed, won on the battlefields of Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland and Kosovo. His acts of derring-do included rescuing a young woman from an angry mob with nothing but his bare fists.