I saw Taffy Thomas MBE at the Wales Milennium Centre, Cardiff Bay, and he had some bad news: Duncan Williamson, the Scottish traveller and story-teller, who is Taffy's mentor, had just had gone into Kirkcaldy Hospital with a stroke. At the moment he was without speech.

Taffy was caller, leader of Magic Lantern and then the instigator behind The Fabulous Salami Brothers. At the age of 36 he had a massive stroke, which put paid to his eating fire, dancing barefoot on broken glass and other tricks which the Salamis used to pull. He reinvented himself as the world's biggest liar-cum-storyteller. He was down at the WMC lauching a book, Storytelling and Emotional Literacy, with he co-wrote with consultant clinical pyschologist Dr Steve Killick.

On stage, Taffy said that the greatest tribute he could pay Duncan would be to tell one of the great man's audacious tall tales, to keep the tale thriving. Don't let the tale die!