Katie Campbell talks talk Gift of the gab
GOSSIP.
I love it.
Unashamedly, unrepentingly.
Most people do, though few will admit it these days.
To gossip: to natter, to prattle, to chatter, to tittle-tattle, to jabber, to jaw.
As far back as 700 BC Hesiod was wary of it: ' Gossip is mischievous, light and easy to raise, but grievous to bear and hard to get rid of. '
In other words, mud sticks.
But gossip hasn't always had such bad press.
Even Oscar Wilde called it charming  granted he was one of history's great gossipers, but he was an even greater gossipee.
It has often been noted that while barbarians fight with hatchets, civilised men fight with gossip.
Well, frankly, I'd rather have a little mud than a hatchet thrown at my back.
And gossip needn't be malevolent; my Little Oxford Dictionary defines it simply as' informal talk, esp about persons. '
In any case, when someone gossips well they are called a wit or a conversationalist; only those who gossip badly are tarred with the appellation ' Gossip '.
Good gossip must have an esential core of truth to it, and a dose of compassion, concern or at least good humour attached; it is bad gossip that has no basis in fact, that is driven obviously and primarily by maliciousness.
That sort of gossip certainly should be condemned; that is the sort Hesiod warned against.
But even he went on to say that gossip has' a kind of divinity '.
And Seneca seven hundred years later spoke of ' that most knowing of persons  (the) gossip '.
The word gossip itself actually means' God's kin '.
Originally it was a term of respect denoting a godparent  as Queen Elizabeth I was the gossip at the baptism of her godson James VI, or indicating friends with a common spiritual bond.
Following the peasant habit of referring to any elder as' Mother/Father ' or ' Grandmother/Grandfather ', the word was also applied to any gathering of older folk.
It was only when it began to be associated exclusively with women that gossip began its slippery slide into the gutter.
From denoting women friends or gossips, the word came to denote the speech of gossips.
And so it acquired its contemporary, pejorative connotation of idle chatter.
There is a theory that gossip is a form of speech particular to women  to women, old people, servants and slaves.
In other words, to the powerless.
But while Daisy and Rose were gossiping in the downstairs pantry, does anybody really doubt what Lord Bellamy was doing upstairs in the drawing room?
Discussing affairs of state  no doubt.
The sort of affairs that lose elections and topple governments.
Not philosophy, not theology, but  you guessed it  gossip.
A psychiatrist friend of mine recently returned from an international conference in Athens.
When I asked him what those eminent shrinks did with themselves in the evenings he explained that they gathered in the hotel bar.
' And what did you all talk about? '
' Shop-talk: who's getting ahead, and how, and why; who's feuding with whom; who's working with whom; who's screwing with whom. '
' Oh, you mean gossip. '
' No! ' he protested, indignantly.
' We were talking shop; it was shop-talk, not gossip. '
When Lawson resigned the pundits gathered, and mused, and offered up their conjectures and reflections, and it was called Political Speculation.
When women gather to do the same, it is called gossip.
When academics delve into someone's life it is called Biography; when therapists posit theories on human behaviour it is called Psychology; when sociologists ruminate on society it is called Sociology.
When women ponder on an individual, emotion or social phenomenon, it is called Gossip.
So what exactly is gossip  this thing that is so reviled and condemned?
Gossip is Speculation.
About human affairs, about human motives, actions and desires.
As women are largely responsible for the emotional wellbeing of society, it is hardly surprising that the shop-talk of women is gossip.
Gossip is Old Wives' Tales.
Women's wisdom has long been feared: Old Women, Witches, Sibyls, Seers.
Those who scorn or censure women's talk diminish women.
Or seek to.
Gossip is Stories.
Stories provide entertainment, but also instruction.
The best, most satisfying gossip is like the best, most satisfying art; it is cathartic.
Through gossip we learn from other people's lives without undergoing the pain or danger of their experiences.
In short, gossip is a chronicle of humanity.
As Ogden Nash put it, ' Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach/And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech... '
Imagine if Colette or Jane Austen or Dorothy Parker or Chaucer or Shakespeare or Marcel Proust had lived in a world without gossip!
Their works would be skeletal; their insights would be meagre and mean.
You can keep your philosophers speculating on language or your theologians speculating on God, I 'll speculate on the human heart  gossip's good enough for me.
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Figures of fun Open Space..
I WRITE in response to Judith Raymont (November 16) who wrote of the cartoon Men  A User's Guide, ' It is either insulting to men and should not be endorsed by publication, or it is witty and amusing, in which case we, as women, have no right to complain about equivalent portrayals of female stereotypes. '
It does not matter if the cartoon is insulting to men.
The number of such cartoons is so small that, set against the insults to women broadcast by every newsagent and television channel, only a loony masculist would object to them.
Before Raymont works towards' ways of showing respect, understanding and affection to members of the opposite sex ', she should realise that the opposite sex's obsession with ' members' is a problem of enormous gravity.
There is nothing respectful, understanding or affectionate about page three.
W J Gaskill (male) East Kilbride
IWOULD agree that male and female stereotypes portrayed in cartoons are equally abhorrent, were it not for the fact that, whilst one pokes fun at a powerful group in society (men), the other perpetuates the oppression of a powerless group (women).
In an ideal world, there would be no need for either, but for now I would rather see the frustration expressed in these light-hearted terms than in the sort of man-hating bitterness that has given feminism such a bad name.
Natalie Ford Brighton
MEN  A User's Guide is stupid, negative and insulting.
Am I, as a man, supposed to think that, if my body is hairy, it is' thick and bestial '?
Or that my mind, which I consider intelligent and creative, is occupied only with sex, violence and car engines?
Is this funny?
What kind of hypocrisy allows you to (presumably) condemn a similarly degrading portrayal of women, whilst making your page a forum for this cartoon?
Jim Conwell London NW3
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Give and take.
I DISAGREE with Denise Scott Fears' contention that door-to-door collections cause ' guilt and shame ' in many people.
I have never had any qualms about refusing to fund a cause I do not support, but am glad to have the chance to give to good causes I might otherwise have missed.
Having made a collection myself in a depressed area, I got 2.30 in total.
I saw this small sum not as a personal insult but as a gain for the charity I was supporting.
Virginia Rudd Workington, Cumbria
WHILE I sympathise with Denise Scott Fears, I know the charity's response would be, ' It's a cut-throat world out there and we've all got to grab our piece. '
I once complained to Help The Aged about the way they got kids to compete for ' badges' by encouraging them to collect a target number of sponsors  and thus to pester neighbours.
Their response was that this method had greatly augmented their income.
If Denise Scott Fears has problems refusing adults, she 'll feel even more of a ' heel ' refusing that winsome child!
Melanie Kingsbury Nottingham
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Thanks, Hank.
CONGRATULATIONS on printing the extract from Hank Wangford's book (November 16).
He summed up so many unhelpful attitudes from male doctors.
Sympathetic and funny  the man speaks the truth!
A shame there aren't more male doctors like him.
Fiona Thompson London SE24
HANK Wangford echoes my own feelings after visiting Barts hospital with a friend who has lumps in her breasts.
She lay there, stripped and vulnerable, while the senior registrar stabbed a finger, clenched his teeth and shook with unspent rage at her questions.
His bedside manner was, in a word, menacing.
My friend had wanted specifically to talk to a specialist, so she could make up her own mind about surgery.
His message was clear: his own position was paramount and as there was a malignancy risk, it was his job to persuade  or bludgeon  her into the operating room.
It was an extraordinary performance.
Meanwhile, in another part of the hospital, a man lay dead in a lavatory, unnoticed for five days.
But then you don't have to be dead to be ignored.
Lesley Nelson London NW3
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Liliane Landor reports on an issue that has shaken the foundations of French politics and put the question of immigration firmly back on the agenda A country divided.
LEILA and Fatima Achaboun and Samira Saidani are the most talked-about schoolgirls in France.
For two months they have been relegated to their school's library, forbidden to attend classes or take part in any school activity.
Since they turned up on the first day of term wearing headscarves, their teachers, supported by the headmaster, have refused to teach them unless the girls remove the offending headgear.
The Gabriel-Havez school in Creil where they live stands in the heart of the town's industrial estate.
It's a sad grey prefab, put up some 20 years ago as a temporary measure and still servicing the needs of this economically depressed small town some 62km north of Paris.
The 825 youngsters who attend the school are mainly children of immigrants of over 25 different nationalities.
Today the school finds itself in the midst of a public debate which is shaking the foundations of French politics  some say ethics  has split Mitterand's Socialist Party down the middle and has put the questions of immigration and integration back on the agenda with a vengeance.
Mr Cheniere, the school's headmaster, is a practising Catholic of Martinican origin, a freemason whose authoritarian methods do not endear him to his students.
He is adamant that any open manifestation of religious or cultural identity at school goes against the principles of secular state education.
To his credit, Cheniere did attempt a conciliatory gesture when he suggested that the three adolescents could wear their scarves at school outside class hours.
The girls insist that it is their fundamental right to wear their scarves at all times, just as some of their fellow students wear skullcaps or the cross.
They say they do not understand why their headmaster is so intent on persecuting them when 20 Jewish students do not attend school on Saturdays, a normal part of the school week in France.
Confronted with this, Cheniere retorts that there are some differences that are more salient than others.
Let them wear their scarves at home, he adds; this school is French and secular.
The ' Affair of the Scarf ', as it has become known, has taken the French media by storm.
In the past month, not a day has gone by without national newspapers devoting reams of print to the issue, asking in big headlines, as Le Point put it, ' Should we let Islam colonise our schools? '
The left-leaning weekly Le Nouvel Observateur has invited anthropologists, philosophers of many persuasions, feminists (mostly French) and Muslim intellectuals (men) to pronounce their verdicts.
Opinion polls have been taken by Le Figaro and L'Evenement du Jeudi, with wildly differing results, readers have been encouraged to write and religious leaders of all shades have been called upon to give the benefit of their wisdom.
Today in France, the Koran is the flavour of the day as' specialists' dissect its verses and explain the mysteries of Islam to the lay masses.
Yet it remains that, for the first time in 15 years and since the controversy over abortion, opinions are divided so haphazardly that traditional political alliances have ceased to operate.
No sooner had the Minister of Education, Lionel Jospin, stated that the scarves could not be a motive for excluding the girls from school than the teachers' union, traditionally close to the Socialist Party, called him a traitor and 50 of his deputies signed a petition publicly disaffiliating themselves from his line and asking for his resignation.
They found themselves rubbing shoulders with right-wing MPs, the same who in 1984 organised a million-strong demonstration in support of private schools and for the right of the parents to choose, and who today declare themselves staunch supporters of the state secular education system.
Mme Mitterrand's support of the girls, in the name of respect of religious cultures within the bounds of secularity, brought an angry reaction from French feminists.
Along with four other intellectuals, including Regis Debray, feminist writer Elisabeth Badinter signed an open letter to Mr Jospin, saying that the scarf is a symbol of Muslim women's oppression and warning him not to capitulate.
A compromise on this issue, they wrote, would damage all that the French Republic has stood for since the Revolution.
Remarkably, the voice of those primarily concerned by the issue, namely Arab women, has been totally missing.
Les Nanas Beurs, an organisation of women of North African descent, believe that the scarf battle has to be fought.
' As Arab feminists of Muslim culture, we believe that fundamentalism in all its forms is dangerous and that the scarf is oppressive, ' said spokeswoman Souad Benani.
' But it should not be used as a pretext to exclude 12- or 13-year-old girls from school when it is precisely these secular schools that should offer them the opportunity to learn, grow and make their own choices. '
For her organisation, as well as for SOS Racisme, the mass movement of young French of immigrant descent, this debate hides another agenda.
What is really being debated, according to Hayat Boudjema, vice-president of SOS Racisme, is immigration and the integration of migrants and their children in French society.
Already the opposition has united to set up a working group on immigration, with a view to formulating a new bill.
Boudjema believes that the opposition parties are settling a score with the Socialist government and using the schoolgirls as a scapegoat.
There's more and more talk about the inability or unwillingness of the North Africans to adapt and conform.
' This controversy has been tainted by racism parading as a concern for the adolescents' welfare, ' says Boudjema.
' The scarves are being used to fan the age-old fear of the Arab which has been dormant  simmering  since the Algerian war. '
For her the real issue is the second generation's right to education, but not any old education.
' We are still being taught about ' our ancestors, the Gauls'.
The history of our countries of origin in Africa, Asia or the Arab world has remained totally obliterated. '
Boudjema, who is of Algerian descent, says she was totally shocked when she first heard of the Affair of the Scarf.
' When women in North Africa and the Arab world are struggling so hard for equality and respect, it is ironic that here in France a fundamentalist minority is pushing them to conform to tradition.
But we can't sacrifice these girls on the altar of a sacrosanct secularity which, in my view, needs to be urgently redefined and adapted to a multiracial society. '
As the debate goes on and the political parties bid for votes and support, Leila, Fatima and Samira are still confined to the library.
In the meantime, in the Paris suburb of Montfermeil, the mayor refused to register children of immigrant descent in his town's primary school, declaring that he'd filled his quota of foreign children.
Similarly, in the small town of Beaucaire in the South, a like-minded mayor refused to admit 40 new children of North African origin.
When forced by the Inspectorate of Education to retract his decision, the good mayor refused them access to the school canteen, controlled by the municipal services.
' As far as I 'm concerned, ' he said, ' they don't exist. '
Guardian Women is edited by Louise Chunn
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Quentin Falk on how five minutes of TV documentary grew into a feature film Love among the bigots.
THE source material of A Private Life, one of the first theatrical projects funded by the BBC, derives to all intents and purposes from a five-minute segment in an award-winning BBC series from 1978 called The White Tribe Of Africa.
This disturbing profile of Afrikaners in their own backyard was drawn by David Dimbleby and directed by London-born but South Africa-educated Francis Gerard who, more than a decade later, makes his feature debut with A Private Life.
During his extended research for the TV series, he met a close couple, Ray and Diana de Proft, living in the Cape Town suburb of Maitland.
Recalls Gerrard: ' Ray and Diana weren't married then, although they would dearly like to have been, because they were citizens of the Republic.
They had been living together across the colour bar for the best part of 30 years.
' They had met when he was a young and not tremendously enthusiastic policeman and she was a waitress in a seafront cafe.
He took her out, they fell in love and started to live together.
Then in 1950 the Population Registeration Act became law.
' And something they had never considered suddenly became very important.
Ray was white.
When Diana's classification came through, she had been designated Coloured.
At about the same time came the Immorality Act, which made sexual relations between different races a crime against the state. '
So Ray then found himself in the position of spending a good many of his working hours enforcing a law which he was breaking himself and increasingly afraid of being arrested by one of his mates.
Their relationship became more and more covert; he left the police and they moved to a suburb where they ' passed for white ' and began the long struggle called ' trying for white '.
When children arrived, matters became even more complicated and ultimatley more tragic.
' Ray and Diana weren't revolutionaries, nor were they political dissidents.
All they had done was to try to live an ordinary private life in South Africa with the dignity that we all take for granted, ' says Gerrard.
This extraordinary story was ruthlessly edited down to its allotted span and eventually tucked away in the last of four hour-long programmes.
But its impact far outweighted its tiny ration.
It made Gerard determined to try to tackle the material ' at the length and depth  and with the budget  it deserved. '
With the backing of the BBC, the guarded co-operation of the couple and the collaboration of a fine screenwriter, Andrew Davies, a full-length film drama was prepared and Gerard even secured permission to film in Cape Town.
Then a money crisis hit the BBC and A Private Life was one of the casualties.
The project went into cold storage, periodically resurfacing over the next six years only to sink once more.
Gerard confined himself to documentaries and it was while making a 90-minute update on South Africa, Back On The Frontier, for ITV in 1986, that he became fired up to press ahead again single-mindedly with the feature.
' With the Government slowly clamping down on all media coverage, unless I moved fast any chance of filming within South Africa would be gone and I did want the accuracy and flavour of the country itself to come through in the film. '
The BBC still, happily, seemed keen to see the film produced and so Gerard budgeted it to be made as simply as possible in 16mm for television, with the hope that cinema distributors would find it irresistible and give it a release on the big screen.
On the eve of shooting, the co-production partner  an offshore bank  withdrew from the project.
The BBC itself, via its Enterprises section, rescued the day by coming up with the other half of a total 450,000 budget.
With the same actors in tow anda thumbs-up from the African National Congress, Gerard cranked up again.
This time, and just four days before shooting, his cameraman, Ernie Vincze, was refused entry to the republic on the grounds he was an ' undesirable alien '.
After labyrinthine inquiries, it was discovered he once photographed a series of ducumentaries of which the Government disapproved.
A replacement was approved and shooting finally went ahead.
OVERNIGHT FILE
