It's not idle gossip that's wicked, but acting on it That directness, which can feel like bluntness to English ears, isn't always a virtue. Some friends who lived in Utrecht for a while told me that one reason for their departure was the social pressure against curtains in their windows. Their neighbours read this as "something to hide." No doubt they exaggerated; in any case, I also hate curtains. But these national differences are marginal, compared to the propensity to gossip within all of us. The universality of the desire is one reason the Bible is so against the habit. In Matthew: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves." Agatha Christie, too: The Moving Finger, one of Miss Marple's best, hinges (apparently) on the work of a poison-pen letter-writer. That neither Jane Marple nor one of Christ's disciples managed to curb the human instinct for gossip leads one to suspect the Dutch researchers are on to something. Even office rumour-milling can serve a positive function. In an age where it is nearly impossible to write anything down, for fear of being accused of discrimination at some future tribunal, how else to tell the truth about a co‑worker's ability? It might not be pleasant to be pulled aside after a meeting, and listen to a ravenous wolf relate X's grotesque levels of ineptitude - but I'd rather overcome my disdain for the gleaming eyes with which such stories are usually relayed than find myself hiring X from a position of ignorance. Litigious fears have reduced official employer references to the banal "X worked here between these dates." Gossip remains the only unregulated machine by which one person can relate, unofficially, their true feelings about another. Which is perhaps the link with the nursing profession and caring. "Everyone" now agrees that a box-ticking culture has acted against the human need for care (I don't believe anyone trains to become a nurse unless they have a higher than average desire to help others). Perhaps tolerance of gossip might help: "You need to watch her - she cuts corners," murmured over tea, could help improve patient care more than any number of centrally ordained NHS initiatives about how to behave. But read those news stories about the Jimmy Savile scandal again. Apart from the "no one would have believed me" ubiquity of the witness statements, there's another common thread, voiced by those who knew him: "We all thought he was dodgy." Why was the gossip not acted upon? Perhaps for the best of reasons. Hypersensitive to real or imagined slights myself, I can't airily dismiss innocent targets of malign gossip as unavoidable "false positive" hits, even if the Dutch research suggests that they are. I doubt I'm the only person who followed, with horror, the hounding of the entirely blameless Chris Jefferies, innocent of the crime of which he was accused, which seemed to pivot on the fact that he looked a bit different to the average. Another word for average is "the norm." There but for the grace of God. It's not listening to gossip that is evil, but acting on it, in the absence of objective evidence. Conversely, real villains may escape censure if nothing but malodorous gossip encircles them. Listen to the ravenous wolves, but pause before acting on their testimony alone. Remember Matthew, Miss Marple, and Chris Jefferies. Gossip can be useful as a pointer for further investigation, and is anyway universal, but a wolf takes no care to differentiate the innocent from the guilty.