Medal-ing with history

Can journalists no longer add up? Could they ever, I hear you ask.

The thought arises after reading this article on Sky News today (click the link while you can - News International want to start charging you for accessing their news online, in what is known as "Operation Send Everyone To The BBC News Website Instead").

The gist of it is that a bloke called Roger Day turned up to the remembrance day ceremony in Bedworth with 17 medals that "military experts" claim it would be impossible to have earned.

Not so, insists Mr Day - who, we are helpfully informed, is 61 years old - they were all earned fair and square.

The most recent medal is from the first Gulf War, at which point he would have been about 40 years old, so no problems there. But the earliest medal was from World War II. Now, even I can perform the sum 2009 minus 61, and discover that Mr Day was born three years after the second world war ended! In fact, he wouldn't have been able to enter military service until 1966.

It's okay though, because Mr Day has the backing of the local vicar. "There are pictures of him in the Armed Forces in his home," he says. Well, that proves it then - he clearly was serving in the army three years before he was born.

After all, you can't fake a photograph...