"That's true," insists the man who 10 minutes ago was talking about manipulating the media. "Somehow we always get asked about the process, how it must have been so closely monitored. But it's all shite. We're not really that great," he says -- a lie, but so charming a lie that you can't help but go along with it.

"Now as soon as someone else hears that, really figures it out, we're all fucked," Burns says. And of course, he's laughing hard.