and finally...


We can all be hypocrites when it comes to gossip


Chappell Roan means tittle-tattle but Lucretia Borgia represents culture, says Chris Proctor


W


hy is new gossip low-brow trivia and old gossip first-rate stuff that wins plaudits on University Challenge?


I met my old journalist friend Linda in the Wallace collection for a cultural interlude, which turned quickly into a moan marathon. We grumbled how news is often nothing but tittle-tattle. What’s this fascination with the goings-on of so-called celebrities? Did we care that Teyana Taylor and Aaron Pierre weren’t talking and there was possibly a rift between Jesy Nelson and Zion Foster? This wasn’t news, we fumed (quietly given our surroundings). Neither of us was affected by these


stories nor exclaimed, ‘How awful,’ ‘How sad’ or ‘I’m not surprised’, possibly as we had not heard of the principals. We paused, putting aside our pique to peruse portraiture. “Oh look,” Linda remarked, pointing


at a picture of a rather natty chap wearing an ornate yellow jacket and matching fascinator. “Isn’t that Dudley? Earl of Leicester?” We edged forward to investigate the brushwork. She sucked in her cheeks and tapped her nose with a forefinger. “Dudley,” she said. “He was the…” (heavy stress) “… consort of Elizabeth.” Her lips pursed. “The ‘virgin queen’… by reputation, at least.” “It’s attributed to Steven van der


Meulen,” I read. “At least it’s attributed.” “No, he’s the painter of the picture, not the source of the story.” We glanced at François Boucher’s Madame de Pompadour. No better than she should be, we observed.


Returning to our discussion, I brought up – and, indeed, nearly vomited at – the coverage given to a lady called Chappell Roan (although this is apparently fake news and her real name is Kylie, Kayleigh or possibly Ceilidh. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of looking her up). So what makes this woman an object


of fascination? She looks like a character from the opening scene of Macbeth (to continue the cultural theme) and says she’s a lesbian. So what? If a plumber comes to our house – and more often than not they don’t – I never ask about their leisure-time activities and show no interest in their romantic pursuits. I want my drip stopped. Who does it is immaterial compared with when. I feel the same way about Ms Roan’s


musical metier. Music is an auditory pastime. I never ponder the sexuality of the French horn. I simply don’t want to know. Reporting it is gossip masquerading as news. We paused by Jacques Charlier’s


Diana and Nymphs Bathing. “No sign of that odious Actaeon


lurking behind the bushes getting an eyeful,” Linda remarks. “He deserved everything he got, the dirty little peeping Tom.” “He said it was an accident.” “Of course he did. Men are like that.” “He might have just been passing…” “If he’d been passing, he wouldn’t


have hung around long enough to be discovered, would he? I mean if you accidentally popped into my bathroom and found me naked in the shower, what would you do?” “I’d congratulate you on your plumber.” “He was a lewd voyeur and, if anyone


merited being turned into a deer, it was him.” We moved to another room, taking time away from culture to attempt to


“ ”


calculate how many words had been written about the Epstein affair. Millions. Hundreds of millions. A lot more than about the Crimean War for example. When all that was needed was ‘pervert’, ‘exploiter’ and ‘remember the victims’. Linda wondered how many times the


No sign of that odious Actaeon lurking behind the bushes. He deserved everything he got, the dirty little peeping Tom


phrase ‘The appearance of this name in the files does not imply wrongdoing’ had been flaunted. And it’s quite right – being present doesn’t mean guilt. Besides, Linda and I are not the sort of people who’d grub around these salacious stories. All the same, we did seem to know quite a lot about British businessmen, global pop stars, analytic philosophers, aristocratic types and others who might have been chums with Mr E. Neither of us could explain why. Perhaps, Actaeon-like, we’d spotted it accidentally as we passed by. Still on tour, we came upon a small portrait of Lucretia Borgia. Say no more. Some of the tales about her defy belief, but we exchanged them anyway. This took us onto Penelope and a discussion of her resistance of 108 suitors while Odysseus was overseas – 108 suitors and no hanky-panky? Maybe. And what about the time Hephaestus caught the missus and Ares at it? Not to mention that Zeus fellow whose appetite for innocent nymphs was, reputedly, prodigious. I congratulated Linda on the breadth of her knowledge of myths both Roman and Greek. She explained it was vital to keep up appearances. You have to keep up to date with the out-of-date if you’re cultured. Over a coffee in the glass-roofed


courtyard, we concluded our condemnation of the gossip, innuendo and downright smut that is perused by modern media consumers, regretted its proliferation by our own profession and, making an excuse, left the gallery.


theJournalist |27


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