Gossip might seem to be a strange topic to be covered in the Bloke's pages, but nonetheless it is a mandatory topic for Blokes to be aware of. There are, of course, two forms of Gossip, Bloke's Gossip and Sheila's Gossip.
Bloke's Gossip
Bloke's Gossip consists of dialogues about the important things in life. For
instance, a Bloke might 'Gossip' (if you can call it that) by saying "I see
Dave's got a new ute", to which his mate might say "Yeah, a Toyota.".
Another peice of gossip might be "That Mike is a complete plonker for painting
his car by hand instead of borrowing Nick's spray gun", to which his mate
might say "Yeah." A devoted student of language will note that Bloke's
gossip starts with a statement on one topic, receives a positive, negative,
or on-topic response, then ENDS.
Sheila's Gossip
This is a completely different boot of tools. Sheila's gossip goes like so:
"I see Cath's had her hair coloured, it looks really good" to which her mate
replies "Well, Mike's not been paying much attention to her since he's spending
all that time painting his car by hand" to which the first one says "Yes, and
she's not the only one missing out recently - I hear that Dave's spending all
his time in the new Ute tuning it up into what he calls 'a performance vehicle',
and speaking of performance, how is your new bloke working out?" to which her
mate will respond "Well, to be quite frank he's no Kevin Costner.." (and go
on to discuss movies Kevin Kostner's been in, which one they like the best,
how the like Brad Pitt now, what movies he's done that they liked, how Angelina
is a lucky cow, how her movies aren't so flash, who she used to date,
how old she is, how fat she is, how she's a bitch, etc, etc).
Another example might be: "I see that your Dave's got a new car - have you driven it yet?" to which the response is "No" (like it should be), and then "but one of these days when he's at work I might grab the spare keys and pick the girls up for a tour of the clothing factory shops" to which the response is "Well, we'd better pick Cath up because she's looking a little frumpy now that their worker has moved on to a new farm - IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN AND I THINK YOU DO!" to which the response is "Yes, I certainly do, although I can't blame her when Paul's spending all his time at the pub..." etc.
What does this tell us?
Women know everything. By a form of biological radar which it is beyond the
scope of this document to describe, women can DETECT information that they do
not have, and make calls to rectify the situation. And they tell each other
EVERYTHING. So perhaps you have a hard night on the hops and the old pegger
isn't up to some late-night romance. By the end of morning smoko the next
day everyone's going to know. All the handbrake's mates, their friends,
people they run into while shopping, the telephone marketer who was trying to
sell time-shares, the religious canvassers who came to the door to talk about
faith etc and the traffic cop that pulled her over when she was taking her
mates around the factory shops in your car via your spare set of keys.
So what do I do?
It's like you're part of the X-Files conspiracy. Admit nothing. So
you've been on the turps for 10 hours prior to wandering to bed. Say the
pegger isn't up to "all-night bumping the uglies". What do you do? Tell
her that you're performance impaired? I DON'T BLOODY THINK SO!!!!
FIND SOMETHING BLOKEY TO DO TILL SHE FALLS ASLEEP - THAT'S WHAT A REAL
BLOKE WOULD DO! Haven't you got firewood to cut? Some painting to do?
Maybe it's time to do a little late-night pruning? Hell, the neighbours
kids have been annoying the crap out of you - why not mow the lawns at 3am?
* WARNING * Tuning the car, your pride and joy, at this time of night,
and with this much under the belt, is not advised. You'd be surprised at
(a). How poor your ear is for judging eight cylinders running optimally
(especially in the morning when you try to start it), and (b). How fast that
fan spins when you accidentally place your hand into it mid-lean. Similarly,
chainsaws are not advisable, and yeah, you probably should skip the lawnmower
as well...
So how does Gossip work?
Gossip is like a keg of beer. Kegs of beer, unlike bottles and cans, are not
pasteurised, which means that after a certain amount of time, the gossip
becomes unusable, except of course, if the handbrake's folks come round - who
don't know about shit about beer or gossip. So for the normal case,
gossip has to be used as soon as possible. Different kinds of gossip, like
different kinds of beer, has differing values. For instance, someone else's
most intimate personal details are like the premium imported beer which is
worth a truckload of dosh. (Not that you'd drink the bloody stuff - if one
of the blokes caught you necking a beer with a peice of fruit stuffed down
the bottle, they'd be asking for your Rugby Jersey back quicker
than you could say "The handbrake bought it for me"). Gossip about
someone's new hair style for instance is worth about the same as a slab of
that cheap and nasty locally-brewed "beer" that is so bad that people usually
stop off at the Gas Station for a litre of meths instead. UNLESS there's some
nasty deep dark personal secret involved in why the new hair style's around.
Lastly, how many people know, is the final crucial element.
So, the mathematical rule is:
(Where GV=Gossip Value, N=Number of people who already know, and S=How deep and dark a secret it's supposed to be: 1-1000)
GV = S/N
I.e. If someone's shagging around and only the handbrake knows about it we'll
give the gossip a street value of 684. With one person knowing, the calculation
gives us:
GV = 684/1 = 684
As soon as the handbrake tells someone:
GV = 684/2 = 342
And as soon as they tell a couple of mates:
GV = 684/4 = 171
So, by the time you get to know, which is when she's run out of other
people to tell, GV=0. The estimated time from the best piece of gossip
in the world ("Bruce's handbrake sneaked out to the factory shop in his Valiant
Regal and was so busy shagging the shop assistant in the changing rooms she
didn't hear it roll backwards [because of the dodgy park-brake] down the
hill into the side of a rubbish truck") getting from GV=1000 to GV=1 is about
4 minutes. Unless of course the telephone system in your town is down and
your CB landstation is broken in which case it will be dependant on how
quick the handbrake's car is. You however, will hear about it (whether
you want to or not) when you're just about to eat dinner about 4 hours later.
Unless Bruce rings you to help tow his Valiant Regal.
Women are aware of the exponential decline in gossip value so they may appear frantic when they first hear something juicy because they're trying to figure out who to tell and in what order so as to maximise value. For instance the LAST person she'd tell would be someone who works with a phone for a living, because the value would be zero in no time. Instead, a sheila will tell the person least able to tell anyone else FIRST, working her way up to the 'connected' people as she goes. That way she's essentially artificially keeping the value of gossip high by limiting access to it. If only this marketing power could be harnessed for good you wonder? Well it can't. A sheila will also plan the release of gossip. Why tell people one at a time if you're going to see everyone at dinner. That way you can tell everyone at once with the top gossip value, with the gossip value plummetting immediately after. It's the hiroshima effect of gossip mongering.
But wait, there's more!
In the back of a sheila's mind there's always the worry that someone will
stumble across this juicy morsel before she can get a chance to pass it
on. (Maybe John, the rubbish truck driver has told his Mrs he'll be late at
home because Bruce's Mrs didn't put the handbrake on..) So a sheila will
be worrying that maybe John's Mrs realises that Bruce would never let his
Mrs take the Valiant, and maybe John's Mrs is wondering whether the bloke behind
the counter really is a poof like Bruce says or... ... and before you know it,
the sheila's on the phone to talk to John's Mrs, to borrow a cup of sugar or
something - but really to see if she's been talking to John. And maybe John's
Mrs DOES know what's happened, but maybe She'sgoing out tonight
too and maybe she wants to drop the bombshell. So it ends up like
one of those Olympic pansy cycling races where the cyclists are just balancing
there, waiting for the other one to make a break. And when they do, it's all
on!