Gossip Boi: Lost in Gossip

Another classic edition of Gossip Boi from ATV Today. First published on September 17th 2008 we’ve left some of the series online as a reference to our early home-grown features, and for your reading pleasures. This edition is number fifteen, entitled ‘Lost In Gossip‘.

He’s back. Our London-based columnist, Gossip Boy, returns for a new season of columns as he reports all from the scandal-laced world of London. Restyled as Gossip Boi, he kicks off his new run as he once again reports from the Streets of London.

If you could lose yourself in a book, which would it be? Which book would you choose to live out the rest of your days? Which book would you like to get Lost in? Would it be a childhood favourite or a book you enjoy as an adult? Would it be sci-fi or romance? Action or mystery? Poirot or Narnia? Middle Earth or the Middle Ages? Gossip Boi was pondering this after watching Lost in Austen. Would he prefer to be in a romance, ala Lost in Austen, or would he rather wander into Narnia? Would Gossip Boi prefer to lock swords with the White Witch or lock words with Mr. Darcy? As Gossip Boi pondered another thought occurred to him. What would an outsider make of his life if he were to wander into it, like finding ourselves in the pages of an unfamiliar book?

Gossip is such a bad thing to spread, society tells us, and yet it is my job here to report on the Gossip and scandal that takes place here. What would a stranger, from a book say, make of that? What would a stranger make of the stories I’ve told? The break ups, the liaisons, the betrayals that I have witnessed?

Indeed it could be said that each column is like a story itself, a short story with a beginning, middle and end. Some are love stories others are stories of betrayals or endings. The man who dumped his girlfriend in Hyde Park, the Romeo who betrayed his friends, the friend who had a threesome and me, the Boi who went on a date with someone who spotted Gossip Boi on the tube. A series of stories loosely linked together by one thing, I’ve told them.

What would someone make of those stories if they could walk between them as a character? What changes would they make? What impact would they have? Gossip Boi sat back and observed, not interfering and allowing things to run their own course. Would someone else have sat back and watched those events unfold? Or would they interfere, try to change things? It’s an interesting question. What would Gossip Boi do if he found himself in Pride and Prejudice? Would he allow the book to run its course or would he try and convince Mr. Darcy that it wasn’t Elizabeth he wanted but Gossip Boi.

What would any of us do in a situation such as that? What would any of us do when presented with a situation they could either help or sit back and watch? Is it really a good thing to watch people’s lives fall apart around them and then report them in this column? To report on the love triangles and the betrayals, the breakups and the dates, the bitching and the lies but if it wasn’t Gossip Boi doing it they’d be someone else. Society frowns on Gossip but it thrives on it. We all love to hear the latest scandal, the latest bit of juicy gossip and we wouldn’t be able to life without it.

For without gossip life is so dull.

Gossip Boi

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