Over the three-day course in Wales, my scepticism drained away entirely and I became a Hare devotee. I think the other sceptics felt the same. He was very convincing. I was attaining a new power, like a secret weapon. I felt like a different person, a hardliner, not confused or out of my depth as I had been when I’d been hanging around with Tony in Broadmoor. Instead, I was contemptuous of those naive people who allowed themselves to be taken in by slick-tongued psychopaths.

My mind drifted to what I could do with my new powers. If I’m being honest, it didn’t cross my mind to become some kind of great crime fighter, philanthropically dedicated to making society a safer place. Instead, I made a mental list of all the people who over the years had crossed me and wondered which of them I might be able to expose as having psychopathic character traits. Top of the list was AA Gill, who had always been very rude about my television documentaries and had written a restaurant column in which he admitted to killing a baboon on safari.

“Item 8 Callous/lack of empathy,” I thought, and smiled to myself.’

True fact. The That's Life researcher who found and filmed the dog that says sausages is Adam Curtis.

— jon ronson (@jonronson) August 10, 2010

…you can tell the abductees are lying or delusional because their descriptions of the aliens and their craft are always so unimaginative. As he writes in The Eerie Silence, the giveaway is the banality of the aliens’ putative agenda, which seems to consist of grubbing around in fields or meadows, chasing cows or cars like bored teenagers, and abducting humans for Nazi-style experiments.

‘His testimony offers a compelling argument against conspiracy theories. He spent between five and seven years roaming the corridors of power like the Invisible Man, wandering into Pentagon offices, rifling through files, and he found no particular smoking gun about anything. He unearthed nothing to suggest a US involvement in 9/11, nothing to suggest a UFO cover-up. Nothing, he told me, except two things…’

I phone Zoe Watkins at the Ian Fleming Centre, the literary estate. She’s known within Bond circles for having an encyclopedic knowledge of the books.

“I want to recreate a great Bond journey,” I say. “I want to take a passage from one of the novels and assiduously match Bond car for car, road for road, meal for meal, drink for drink, hotel for hotel.”

“What a wonderful idea,” she says. “But which journey do you want to recreate?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “One in Moonraker?”

“Moonraker is basically a drive from London to Margate,” Zoe says. “Fleming’s fans were disappointed by the absence of exotic locations.”

“Why did my husband decide to take his own life?” asks the first woman.

“What?” Sylvia says. The woman is crying so hard, Sylvia can’t understand her.

“Why did my husband decide to take his own life?” the woman repeats.

“He was bipolar,” Sylvia says.

The next woman walks to the microphone.

“I have a strained relationship with my daughter,” she begins. “And I want to know …”

“Your daughter is strange,” interrupts Sylvia.

‘If anyone doubts the extent to which mysticism has permeated the hitherto secular corners of British society, they should spend a couple of days behind the scenes at Deal Or No Deal. “I wrote to the cosmos that I would like to meet a woman who’ll make me laugh and make me happy,” Noel tells me. “I wrote that I’d like a relationship that’s not too heavy, with an attractive lady, and I’d like her to walk into my life by the end of September 2005. And she did!” There is a short silence. “She wasn’t the person who sold her story to the Sunday People back in July, was she?” I ask. There’s another silence. “Yes,” says Noel.’

• You Shone Like the Sun — backgrounder and brief interview with Syd Barrett … ‘Then, a sound in the hall. Has he come in from the back garden? Perhaps it needs mowing, like the front lawn – although, judging by the mound of weeds by the path, he’s been tidying the beds today. I knock again, and hear three heavy steps. The door flies open and he’s standing there. He’s stark naked except for a small, tight pair of bright-blue Y-fronts; bouncing, like the books say he always did, on the balls of his feet. He bars the doorway with one hand on the jamb, the other on the catch. His resemblance to Aleister Crowley in his Cefalu period is uncanny; his stare about as welcoming…’ [Related: Metafilter Thread]
• Hoax! [Part 1 | Part 2] — Jon Ronson meets America’s Anthrax Hoaxers … ‘Terry first realised that he was in very big trouble when no less a figure than the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, made a speech about him in a press conference to the world on October 18. Ashcroft announced that the FBI had “arrested Terry Olson for committing a serious crime in connection with terrorist hoaxes”. “What did they charge you with?” I asked him. “Weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “Life imprisonment.” “You must have said to them that Nesquik and sugar aren’t weapons of mass destruction,” I said.’

‘A few years ago, John Birt came in for lunch. My father approached his table: “Are you John Birt?” he asked.

“Yes,” said John Birt.

“I wonder if you can help,” said my father. “The TV reception in this area can be all crackly and fuzzy. Can you do anything about this?” I think my father wanted John Birt to get on to the roof and fix the aerial.

“We spoke about all sorts,” my father told me on the phone afterwards. “The problems I’m having with my car – he couldn’t believe that it’s been in the garage six times.”

“Oh, and he hasn’t heard of you,” added my mother, on the extension line.’