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"I never let the truth get in the way of a good story." - Alan The Doyle
The earliest recorded example of doyling exists in the Tain Bo Cuailnge, wherein the ancient High King, Ailil, was a doyler of great repute. Many fine doyles can be found within this tale, which, like most folklore and myth subscribes to the same original purpose of education and entertainment back in those dark, pre-Web days. "Doyling... serves no purpose other than to delight, to entertain and instruct as is exigent of all good Art." - (Jane in Virginia)
Ailil's name comes from the same root word - "ail" - as does Ailín - the Gaelic form of Alan. Re-incarnation is a distinct possibility, here.
The term "a doyle" or "a doyler" was first used in the confines of the Great Big Sea Online Kitchen Party Chatroom, to mean a tall tale, a shaggy dog story, etc, because Alan The Doyle had proved himself so adept at telling them. These terms have been more closely defined as time and tales accumulated and definitions have refined themselves alongside Alan's distillation of his doyling technique. Now, a doyler is one who tells a tall tale; a fibber, an embroiderer on the truth, but never a liar. A doyle is a tale told with the intention of confounding the listener - of keeping them in doubt as to whether the doyler is telling the truth or whether, just maybe, the tale is a put-on.
One fine weekend in June, the heady brew of the doyling discussion finally burst its airlock, blew its cork, and bubbled over into a full-blown thesis. Rules for doyling, as such, are not capable of being laid down, simply because any half-decent doyler could pick them up, tie them into knots and make fantastical animals out of them (a little like conjurors do with those long, thin balloons). The same holds true for a hard-line definition of doyling. It is a living, growing skill, and its masters (well, two at least) seem to be engaged in pushing the envelope further afield (if you'll forgive the pun) with every Great Big Picnic. With, of course, their faithful apprentices sitting on the grass, lapping up every half-true word and trying to find the truth therein. However, this document endeavours to lay down a skeleton of the meaning and techniques of doyling, complete with joints, hollow skull with unknown territory inside, and little gristly bits hanging off here and there.
Real Ails
The basic unit of measurement of a doyle is known as an "Ail" (pron. "al"), the root behind both Ailil, that original doyler, and Alan, his modern-day resurrection. How big is an ail? No-one knows. It changes every day. What is an ail worth? Being an entirely personal currency, the exchange rate is, as yet, unknown. The value and worth of one single ail changes according to the person awarding it. It also changes along with the audience who are in the process of being doyled, with the doyle itself, and according to whoever is doing the doyling. Some basic precepts have been laid down (even if they are set in Play-Doh rather than stone).
The Ail Scale has been agreed to be a little like the five-star system used to grade hotels and inns of hostelry. Though, in deference to Alan The Doyle's world-famous "minor doyle" of having slept with Bo Derek when he was nine, the Ail Scale will run from one to 10. An extremely bad doyle will be known, in honour of Ms Derek's unlikely pairing with the short boozy British comedian, as a Dud.
An "Ail" can stand for "an ounce of exageration or a pound of flair" (Jane in Virginia), and you may as well throw in a kilo of confusion, to boot. Take it from me, though, it hurts if you actually do try to boot it. Heavy stuff.
To Doyle or Not To Doyle?
When is a doyle a doyle? This is in fact a very difficult question to answer, as a doyle may or may not be defined as a doyle according to what we shall term "floating factors". These floating factors include (not exclusively) the doyler and his life's knowledge/experience, the audience and their individual and combined knowledge/experience, the subject matter, and even the time and place of the doyling. All of these can combine and interact to decide whether the utterance in question is, in fact, a doyle. Then again, they may not be bothered, and may ignore what is going on entirely. It depends upon their mood.
A proportion of points on the Ail Scale depend upon how the tale holds up through subsequent re-tellings; and also how well the doyler embroiders upon the tale: see "The Developing Doyle" below. A doyle must retain its sense of balance between truth and absurdity whilst edging out along the bough of improbability without knocking any leaves off. Of course, it does not necessarily have to stay attached to its roots to do this, though a little of the original soil helps to maintain growth. Water well, keep in a sheltered spot and prune hard once a year.
There are 5 (so far) basic elements to help define a possible doyle. In no particular order of importance, these are:
Content
Courage
Commission
"It seems to me that Alan .... often tips off his doyling around by his facial expressions...." - (Dr T)
Acting skills are a definite asset in putting a doyle into commission. Even if one's Equity card is earned via the casting couch at an improbably early age.
Credibility
Confusion
To tie the Credibility and Confusion together, and so finish off this section, "it's the ambiguity ... the question of how much is doyling and how much isn't.... that makes for a good doyle" - (Dr T)
Doyling Definitions
Doyles can actually be divided into separate types, according to content and delivery.
The Personal Doyle
A Personal Doyle is the hardest type of doyle to deliver successfully; not for the uninitiated, this one. It has two requirements: that it contain details which are likely to be known only to a small audience, and that it be delivered to an audience that is at least somewhat privy to the knowledge required to see through it.
The Ail Scale of any doyle rests in part on the knowledge of the audience and their relativity to the doyler. Take two possible audiences as an example: Alan The Doyle's friends and relatives, and us - the general populace. If, for instance, Alan were to 'doyle' a group of his close friends and relatives about his underage 'experience' with Bo Derek, and if he were to recieve the unlikely response of "You never told me that! How was it for you?", that would indeed be a perfect 10 on the Ail Scale. If, however, he were to doyle an average audience with that particular shaggy dog story (no insult to Bo Derek intended), it would recieve far less ails. For one, we have no way of knowing whether Alan was that precocious and no way of finding out - after all, Bo is hardly likely to admit to being a paedophile. Not that it could wreck her career more.
"...doyling the cognoscenti is much more challenging, to say nothing of more sporting.... A doyle is only as good as its dupe." - (Hap)
Personal doyles only score highly on the Ail Scale if the doylees should know better.
Therefore, the Personal Doyle can be defined as a tale which will only score Ails when successfully confounding a group of doylees with an amount of foreknowledge of the subject concerned. This title can also be used to define a doyle demanding expert knowledge of a particular subject, i.e. the behaviour of neutrons when influenced by condensed extra-solar radiation on a Sunday afternoon.
The General Doyle
Another type of doyle has the reverse inference of the Personal Doyle. This is the General Doyle, which demands the assumption of a wider knowledge base amongst listeners. For instance, relatively few people (again, excuse the pun) apart from his family would have intimate knowledge of Alan's younger personal life, so the application and use of that particular type of doyle can only reasonably be directed to a small audience.
The General Doyle involves the use of subjects which are generally well-known, or at least well-guessed, such as the weather patterns of the island of Newfoundland. The Tropical Isle Doyle gains points by being related successfully to a broader audience, simply because everyone can be assumed to have access to the mechanisms for ascertaining the truth or lack thereof within that particular doyle, such as weather reports, tourist guides, an atlas and some common sense, word of mouth, etc. Still, there is testimonial that a few unfortunate travellers have disembarked from a plane in St John's in early November wearing only shorts and vests, with suitcases full of sunscreen. Of course, they were Doyled CFA's.
A General Doyle is the easier type to attach to any given audience, whether their knowledge base is perceived by the doyler or not. It is recommended that apprentice doylers begin with this type of doyle.
The Group Doyle
The Group Doyle, as far as anyone knows, was originated and perfected within the confines of Great Big Sea. A Group Doyle is only permissible among consenting adults, is not for the innocent or faint of heart, and may even be illegal in some states/territories. A Group Doyle involves more than one person spinning out the thread of the tale in one time and place, each putting their 'bits' in to elaborate on the story or acting as a 'straight man' for the other, the better to increase the impact of the doyle on the doylees.
A case in mind is the 'true story' behind the lyrics to "Can't Stop Falling", which started off, simply, as "the story of a fictional character. About a girl met in a pub and the conversation moved to the subway." (Alan), and was slowly elaborated and reshaped by both Alan and Séan until the pendulum of perhaps started whipping about like a cat's tail.
The song "... when performed live, has various different intros that place it alternately in the realms of 'maybe fictional', 'partially fictional' and 'maybe about Alan, but who the heck knows'." - (Dr T)
The Developing Doyle
As stated earlier, a good doyle has a future all of its own. A good basic doyle is able to be embroidered, decorated, expanded and built upon. It can acquire extra Ails depending on how well the new details fit into the old tale, how it holds up through further re-tellings and the reactions of the appropriate audiences.
"Ails can accumilate based on how many details get added, elaborated, reshaped, spun out in increasingly implausible directions.... That way a story that starts out with a low Ail count can achieve maximum doyle potential through retelling" - (Dr T)
A good developed doyle should not get a reaction of "No, it didn't happen that way!", but instead "I didn't realise that happened..... it did, didn't it?". A master doyler starts off with a tale that is 99% believable, but with 1% that absolutely refuses to sit comfortably in the listener's brain. Subsequent additions and subtractions in the telling, if done properly, will swing the audience up and down on a seesaw of incredulity and acceptance until they throw up from motion sickness.
"...it takes far more skill to create a doyle where the audience is never certain and never allowed to be." - (Tina)
".... the doyling is more an act of perpetual (mental) motion than a one-time put-on" - (Dr T)
Another issue in the development of the doyle is to what extent the doyle takes on a life of its own - whether it has the capability to wander off unsupervised. A case in point is the truth - or not - behind the aforementioned "Can't Stop Falling" which in the telling has passed back and forth between Alan The Doyle and Séan I McCann (ii), between reality and possibility so many times that it has now upchucked in the corner, and spun off uncontrollably into insinuations on the behaviour of the Secrethairy of PWAOWAH, who just happens to reside in the same city as the supposed locations of the alleged happenings within the song. And who is neither confirming nor denying the rumours until she has a chance to ask Alan if his hair used to be shorter.
The Dud Doyle
Of course, there is a limit to the Ail Scale when it comes to sheer chutzpah. If The Doyle himself were to try the Tropical Isle Doyle to an entirely Newfoundlandish audience, he would most likely not be met with cries of "real Ail!", but with stony faces and flying vegetables. And very few points at all.
"There is a point at which a bold and even edgy story and/or retelling moves into the realm of the absurd..... consequently decreasing the Ails earned..." (Tina) for two reasons. The more absurdity the story contains, past a certain point, the less believable it becomes, and the more 'chutzpah' kicks over into crassness. When a doyle starts to turn into a Monty Python sketch, it ceases to earn Ails.
If a doyle goes the other way and starts acquiring too much believability, this too decreases its Ail value, and in extreme cases may require apology, explanation and back-pedalling (and, occasionally, flowers and chocolates) from the doyler. "A good doyler should never have to explain himself." - (Hap)
This is the 'dark' side of the coin: a doyle with too much of the truth in, or which is absolutely believed to be the truth, can be very dangerous. The first can lead to serious discomfort and confusion of a non-entertaining sort to the innocent (just think of that planeload of Doylees who arrived in St John's without thermal underwear); the second is generally and accurately known as a 'lie'. There is a fine line between a believable doyle and an outright lie.
Another form of Dud Doyle is one where the doyler loses what remains of their sanity, and decides to prop up a failing doyle with actual evidence. This type of Dud Doyle is generally referred to as a 'Hoax', and can be subject to a range of punishments from the civilian peace authority of your choice. At its most innocuous, certain physical evidence may be 'produced' by the amateur doyler who is overanxious to prove their status. This has been known to lead to naive individuals standing on hilltops, waving flashlights and yelling "Take me now!" to innocent cloud formations.
An extreme version of the Dud Doyle known as the 'Hoax' can even become fixed in world consciousness, distorting the local 'reality' of a geographical location or a period in time.... the Loch Ness Monster is a case of this. Or may be. Nessie can be defined as: real; possible doyle; or hoax, depending on your point of view and your susceptibility to the 'evidence' on view in a small Scottish town called Drumnadrochit. The truth in this case is not known and we are incapable as yet of ascertaining it; the 'story' has become fixed and the element of absurdity has degenerated into explanations of scientific theory. This is a doyle gone bad. A good doyle never has anybody absolutely believing or disbelieving it - the uncertainty must remain, and the doyle must not be allowed to fossilize.
Conclusions
The strength of a doyle appears to rest mostly in the personality and skills of the doyler, on their creative streak, delivery skills and sense of audience and timing. A master doyler is a person who succeeds in giving his audience something to blind him, something to wind him up; who is enthusiastic enough to say "I'm willing to pretend, one more time", and who is pure of heart enough to say of his tale, "I won't abuse it, yeah, I've got the best intentions...". Who can stand up and deliver even a horrendously tricky Personal Doyle to old friends (his new friends don't understand), of deciding exactly what you say to someone when they've heard you say it all. If he gets a doyle right, gives it the touch that feels so good, he leaves them feeling pretty psyched. If he goes overboard with a touch too much absurdity, he will have to leave with his tale between his legs, to cries of "See the King, he does come down!", and for him that would be the end of the world. Especially if the unthinkable happens; if a doyle slips over the edge, into a lie, and he has to say "This has to be my apology......".
A true doyle has an essence all its own, though it is nothing without its narrator. A true doyle is all things to everyone, and has the potential for its growth to be exponential. We see that it is a living, growing, breathing - and occasionally vomiting - thing, a little like a chameleon lying there in the sun, with all the colours of confusion on its skin. Like the Emperor's New Clothes, a doyle may be perceived in error, not perceived at all, or simply mis-represented according to its audiences' gullibility, lack thereof, or their complicity in the doyle - and all are valid views. A doyle can contain anything, be comprised of any subject matter its doyler can think of; it can start with an earthquake, birds, snakes and aeroplanes, but be, like the band, just never ended.
The 5 C's of Doyling
A true doyle will hang its audience in the rariefied mid-air between confusion and certainty, between dismission and belief. It will contain just enough of the truth that whoever hears it will say "yeah, so, everyone knows that!" but enough 'alternative detail' to make them put a question mark on the end of that statement. A doyle that rates 10 on the Ail Scale will perpetually throw its listener back and forth across the ping-pong table of belief, without actually letting them fall off of either end. Please note, that despite the inference there, a doyle is NOT a load of balls, ping-ping or otherwise. Not entirely, anyway. Possibly.
The creation and initial elements of a doyle - mostly reality.....or is it? Every doyle needs a good basic foundation of 'material'. An accomplished doyler can start with either fact or fiction, and work in both directions. An apprentice doyler can take a good base doyle and elaborate upon it, to learn the trade, sometimes through the medium of a Group Doyle, where each can build on the other's elaborations and turns.
The underlying nerve that enables the doyler to try, po-faced, to get away with a 10 on the Ail Scale. Otherwise known as "chutzpah" (everybody knows that Jewish mothers make excellent doylers, my dear). It's thoroughly multicultural.
The execution of the doyle; including the vocal delivery:- tone, pitch, emphasis on certain words, the slight giggle in an inappropriate place; and physical delivery:- the Ailin Eyebrow and the Séan smile, the Po-Faced Play; the timing and the tailoring of the doyle to its intended audience (see 'Personal' and 'General' doyles below), and the question: is the doyler letting the cat out of the bag by a quick tic? Or is he/she simply misdirecting his audience as to which is the doyling and what is the truth? A good doyler is adept at remaining straight faced for the 'adjusted truth' and throwing in an appropriate grimace or pause to make their audience doubt what they 'know' to be 'truth'.
The believability of the doyle. A tale that is obviously absurd and unreal is not a doyle. A doyle cannot be a doyle without an element of credibility. A perfect 10-Ail will leave its audience thinking "he's kidding - isn't he?" more or less indefinitely. Like the rumours about Welsh shepherds and their woolly charges.
The counterpart of Credibility - there has to be a balance here. A tale that is obviously true, and leaves its audience in no doubt that it is true (even when it is an outright lie) does not deserve the name of 'doyle'. A true doyle leaves a listener suspended between absolute belief and total confusion (see the Sports Section, under Ping-Pong).
Tain Bo Cuailnge