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 blue one".
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 topics best not brought up when a bloke's trying to eat).
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 the age of the product in question. 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 drinking a beer with a peice of fruit stuffed down
the neck of the bottle, they'd be asking for your Rugby Jersey back quicker
than you could say "The handbrake bought it for me") Whereas, 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:
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 quickly 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.