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When Giuseppe Garbarino invited me to the Florence “Lie-Telling Championship”, I didn’t think twice. After all, how could I possibly turn down an invitation like that?

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There was the theme, which, from a sociological point of view, is a goldmine of ideas. It was a chance to talk about Pinocchio again (if you’ve read my FRAday article on the Pinocchio Museum, you’ll know that Giuseppe is its director) and about the bicentenary of Collodi, his creator.

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And then there was the setting: the San Lorenzo Central Market, where it’s said that Collodi used to go shopping.

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It’s hard to imagine a more fitting place to celebrate literature’s most famous liar. It was there that I found a veritable stall full of fresh, fresh lies for my new article.

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The evening? Pleasant, lively and thoroughly entertaining, despite the heat. Credit also goes to two brilliant presenters, who kept the pace going and had the audience in stitches on more than one occasion.

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And now I’ll tell you all about it.

Let’s tell the truth for a day… Far from the truth.

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Lies are part of our history: they’re in books, in tales and in the little stories we’ve always told each other. There’s just one difference today: speed. A lie can start in one room and travel round the world in a matter of seconds.

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With artificial intelligence, the game becomes even more dangerous: we can create images, texts and videos so realistic that they can cast doubt even on the most careful of minds.

But here we’re talking about something else. At the Lie Championship, the lie is a ‘white lie’: harmless, deliberate and, above all, entertaining.

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It’s the same spirit as in the town squares, where people would gather to tell stories, exaggerate, make things up and make each other laugh. Except that this time, the competition is all about lies.

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As the ‘liarologist’ Mario Burchielli explained to me during our interview (all interviews in Italian) :

“a lie is a false statement made in the knowledge that one is not telling the truth: a minor transgression compared to a falsehood, which, by contrast, conceals a different intent”.

And he concludes with a perfect phrase for this occasion:

‘I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’

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Pinocchio returns to San Lorenzo

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The Florentine selection of ‘little untruths’ is just a taste of what has been happening for 60 years at Le Piastre, in the Pistoia Apennines: the Lie Championship. An event that began almost as a joke and has since gone international, because, as we know, lies have neither passports nor borders.

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Giuseppe wanted to bring this spirit to the city of Pinocchio itself, to mark the bicentenary of Collodi, his creator.

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And what theme could be more fitting than the lie?

After all, if there is one character who has turned lying into a universal story, it is Pinocchio himself.

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For Giuseppe, irony is not merely a pastime, but a genuine means of survival: it is the essence of life, that little spark that allows us to look at the world with a smile. And lies, when told with light-heartedness and intelligence, add ‘a little honey to our days’.

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He also misses the old jokes about politicians, which have now all but disappeared (I recall the political satire programme ‘Les Guignols’ on Canal+ in France, which was sadly cancelled in 2018): a small sign, in his view, of an impoverishment of the democratic spirit. Because being able to laugh at those in power has always been a healthy way of keeping them in check.

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And finally, he leaves us with the most important message:

a lie must be told for a good cause.

Because, after all, Pinocchio told just one big lie, and we all know how that ended: his nose grew to enormous proportions.

Listen to what Giuseppe has to say in his interview.

Some lies have a big heart.

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How lovely it was to meet up again with Guido de Barros, the president of Voa Voa, to whom I dedicated a moving FRAday some time ago. And it was even lovelier to see two seemingly distant worlds come together: fun and solidarity.

The issue of rare diseases remains a difficult, serious and very often painful subject. But something special happened at the San Lorenzo market: for once, a ‘lie’ did some good.

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All the proceeds from the evening – which included a dinner prepared using plenty of natural produce from the market – were in fact donated to the Voa Voa Association to support research, help families and offer even more hope, both in Tuscany and across the rest of Italy.

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For Guido, combining a moment of light-heartedness with profound and often invisible issues is a precious opportunity: because even a smile can become a message of truth when it serves to shed light on realities that risk remaining hidden.

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And perhaps the most beautiful moment came right at the end of the evening.

Two ladies approached Guido with tears in their eyes to say goodbye and thank him. A simple yet incredibly powerful gesture that reminds us of one thing: in an ever-faster world, often focused solely on profit, empathy still exists.

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And this time, the lie didn’t make anyone’s nose grow. It made something far more important grow: solidarity.

This is what Guido told me during his interview

The subtle difference between a lie and  ‘forgery’.

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Did you know that Collodi was also a journalist? It was precisely during the years when Florence was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy that he contributed to the press of the time, including *La Nazione*, the oldest daily newspaper still in publication in Italy.

It was this very fact that sparked the idea of interviewing Fabrizio Morviducci, a news reporter for *La Nazione*, to discuss a topic that is more relevant than ever: lies in the age of digital information.

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Today, with social media and the advent of artificial intelligence, ‘untruths’ spread rapidly. Some are harmless and make you smile, whilst others are anything but harmless and risk confusing, manipulating and influencing millions of people.

The central point of the interview was this: always check your sources. Because unverified information can easily turn into rubbish, whilst credibility stems from research, verification and the responsibility of those reporting the facts.

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The advice is simple:

when you come across conflicting information, don’t stop at the first headline you see. Check, compare and look for reliable sources. Don’t let yourself be fed a lie without at least asking for proof.

Or, even better, come to Le Piastre on August 2nd: there you can practise spotting lies… with a smile, because at least the ones in the Lie Championship are out in the open and have never pretended to be true.

Lies are a serious and… academic matter!

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I’d always thought that experts on lies were light-hearted, a bit carefree and perhaps even frivolous. Then I met Emanuele Begliomini, Rector of the Academy of Lies, and I had to change my mind.

I found myself face to face with a serious, knowledgeable, almost institutional figure… although I’m sure that behind that façade lies a good dose of irony. Because to talk about lies, you first of all need to be able to smile at life.

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His aim is clear:

to keep alive a tradition that for decades has been telling stories, inventing worlds and allowing people to come together, simply for the pleasure of having fun.

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The secret to 60 years of success? Sincerity.

It seems like a contradiction, given that we’re talking about lies, but Emanuele reiterates it with conviction in his interview :

a good liar must always be credible. They must know how to tell a story, have imagination, tackle current issues and possess that healthy ‘cheek’ that transforms a story into something others want to hear.

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In an age dominated by technology and artificial intelligence, he believes imagination becomes even more important. And as an expert in lies, he issues his challenge to AI:

“Lies created by artificial intelligence can be spotted; they’re too polished, too obvious. We see right through them straight away.”

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Because, ultimately, according to Emanuele, human beings will always have one more weapon at their disposal: imagination. And perhaps this is the only lie we can tell without fear: that imagination will never go out of fashion.

This weekend, let’s tell a few lies – as long as they’re white lies.

The 50th Italian Lie Championship will take place from 31 July to 2 August 2026 in Le Piastre, in the Pistoia Apennines.

It sounds like a lie, but it’s the plain truth: 60 years of history, but only 50 championships. Even the calendar tells the odd tall tale now and then!

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The most eagerly awaited moment is Sunday August 2nd: each competitor has just a few minutes to tell a lie. But be warned, here it’s not the person who manages to fool the others who wins. The winner is the one who makes people laugh, surprises them and proves they have the most imagination of all.

For once, lying is an art form. And it’s perfectly legal, too.

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Now it’s your turn:

what’s the funniest lie you’ve ever heard or told?

Go on, confess: I promise not to check the facts. And if you can’t make it to Le Piastre, share it on my social media channels – LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Take on Pinocchio! Today is FRAday!

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