A french controller? at MRS? If you knew anything about air traffic you might understand that calling your operational colleague would not necessarily be able to determine the reason for the delay. Congestion or weather at EDI?, Paris, London or some local issuance in MRS. I have often been given a CTOT for departure into EDI, for no apparent reason, on asking the tower, they sometimes have a reason other times they do not, I do not always ask. If there was something up with the aircraft, an engineer would be required, there are not any engineers in MRS. So I would expect a delay to last much longer than a couple of hours. Why would anyone bother lying about a reason for a delay? It makes no difference to the delay be it ATC, Tech, weather. Besides who would phone an operational controller to find out the reason for a delay? Answer....someone who is at best unprofessional?