But how much of “the most ridiculous story ever told” is true?
I was recently contacted by a faculty member at Cambridge (whose name I will not reveal) who alleges that Arday is a plagiarist and fabulist. My source claims that many if not most professors at Cambridge have known about this for more than a year. However, Arday and/or Cambridge’s administration are using intimidation and legal threats to squelch the story. As far as I am aware, the only mention of Arday’s alleged plagiarism that exists in the public domain is on the personal website of retired Plymouth Marjon University professor Dave Harris. (More on that later.)
Besides the plagiarism, there are serious questions about Arday’s biographical claims.
Developing normal speaking abilities after being nonverbal until age 11 is medically improbable.
Arday has repeatedly made unequivocal assertions that he could not read, write, or even spell his own name until he was 18. But he left secondary school with General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) qualifications in Physical Education and Textiles. Despite being in vocational subjects, these tests require literacy, and they are normally taken at age 15 or 16. Based on publicly available information, it is possible to recreate a timeline that places Arday’s test date before age 18. It is conceivable that he received “special arrangements” to allow him to take the test with help from a reader and scribe. However, a write-up of his forthcoming memoirsays that he “left secondary school with two GCSEs to his name, still barely able to read or write.” So he may be backing away from his original story.
30 marathons in 35 days and 300 miles in three days are feats of dubious believability. Wikipedia lists running 50 marathons in 50 days as one of the highlights of professional ultramarathon runner Dean Karnazes’s career. 30 in 35 days is possible for an amateur, but only with intensive training and planning. 300 miles in three days is an even bigger stretch. For comparison, Yiannis Kouros, who has been described as “the greatest ultrarunner of all time,” set a world record in 1984 when he ran 359 miles in three days. Arday asserts that he was able to do all this because “If you have the will, it will always supersede skill”—a proposition that anyone with experience in athletics knows to be false.
However, it is impossible to prove or disprove Arday’s biographical claims without more direct evidence. Therefore, I will only address questions about his scholarship.
