One of the things that will never cease to surprise me about living in a small community, is the way in which news and (mostly) gossip travel fast.
Maybe that’s the reason why you can’t get high-speed internet connections here: they are superfluous, as gossip travels faster than your average fiberoptic cable, and does not need servers of platforms except for the bench outside of the local bar, and the doctor’s waiting room.
This one is going to be a little rambling, so please bear with me.
I’ll start by saying that I hate gossip.
In real life, I mean.
No problem with gossipy characters in stories, but let us say that I’ve been the object of gossip campaigns in the past that caused a lot of grief, to me and others, so there, hatred is an empty feeling, but I do hate gossip, and gossip-mongers.
Now, I always considered gossip a form of sick entertainment – and indeed it is rife in all those places you see listed in notices at the start of DVD movies: schools, prisons, air bases, cruise ships, Antarctic ice stations…
Any place where you can’t legally show a rented DVD but in which you can legitimately set a slasher horror movie, is where you’ll find gossip thriving.
It’s a thing worth considering. Continue reading
