Gossipmongering

Truly, there is no greater pursuit in England's green and pleasant land than that of disseminating juicy tidbits of gossip and dirt about celebrities. For whatever reason, which I am yet to discover, the English have what might be called an almost obsessive manner when it comes to the goings on of the rich and famous. When Wayne Rooney splashes out and buys his fiancee Coleen a new Merc, this is front page news. The Mirror trumpets, in enormous lettering, that the reason Mr Rooney is spending all this money on her is apparently because he had his end away in a Liverpool knock-shop some 4 years ago, when he was 16 and they'd just started going out. Apparently he's still trying to make up for it.

It's not just footballers either. The Evening Standard carried a headline yesterday, "Prezza's Secret Sleaze Exposed!". For those of you unaware, "Prezza" refers to John Prescott, a fat Welshman who's managed to connive his way into the position of Transport Minister. Frequently referred to snidely as Two Jags Prescott, owing to his love of Jags and cars all the while trying to convince the people of England to ride buses and trains, he is famous for various extra-marital affairs. No doubt Tony Blair would have given him the arse long ago, were he not such a good distraction to wave in front of the press everytime Blair drops the ball.

Whether you are a politician, a royal, a footballer, a tv star, an actor or even a contestant on Big Brother - your life is an open book in England. Everything you say and do is for the sole purpose of public consumption. For the life of me I can't understand it. My only conclusion is that the good people of England live such dreary monotonous lives that they need to bury themselves in the tripe that the media puts out, in order to forget their everyday drudgery. I find this hard to believe, but I'm struggling to think of any other reason. It's almost systematic as well. The papers in England indulge in jibes and barbs so cruel that any paper utilising them in Australia would be blackballed and criticised endlessly. Yet only a British paper could have come up with the now famous "Duchess of Pork" when referring to Fergie's thighs.

I'm struggling to think of a comparative example in Australia. The only one I can think of, in terms of political scandal is back in the 80's when "Silly Billy" Snedden got caught with his pants down in a hotel room, still wearing a latex sheath and lying dead with a grin on his face. The story, as it later turned out, was that he'd expired during a session of slap and tickle, and had been left there by the other party involved when she panicked and did a bunk. In Australia, this was news, granted, but is by and large forgotten these days - indeed, only the term Silly Billy survives. Even the identity of the woman involved remained unknown.

Were this to have happened in England, it would've never been left to rest. The land would have been scoured for the identity of the woman. Conspiracy theories would have been put forth. DNA evidence would have been taken. In fact the woman probably would have come forward of her own free will as she would have been made an offer of a squillion pounds to tell her story to the Fleet Street press anyway. In Australia she might have, at best, got half a column in New Idea and given enough money for a cab fare back from the magazine's office.

I guess what it comes down to is that in England, the press obviously thinks that every scrap of information about celebrities is worth publishing, despite them doing the exact same thing last month. In Australia we expect rugby players to start bar fights, we are not surprised when movie stars throw phones at people, we couldn't give a rats arse who's rooting who on Neighbours and we'd laugh at anyone who confessed to having an affair with an elected MP.

That's the difference between us. That, and ten thousand beautiful miles.