Scrabble players are not exactly a representative sample of society at large. Gossiping old women constitute a large majority of ASPA membership.
During a three-day tournament (Vic Champs 2015), I was asked by Carol J., the arch Victorian gossip machine, to have a word in private. She told me that I called another player a cheat. I asked her, “To whom did I say that?”. After a bit of hesitation, she said, “John R.”. I took her over to John and asked him while pointing at her, “Did you tell her that I said to you that another player is a cheat?”. The reply by John was not important. It would have made no difference to the situation if he said "yes" or "no". So, I turned to Carol and said, “Go away!”. I left the scene in disgust. It was not the first, and would not be the last attempt by Carol to try to implicate me in a contrived incident. Such attempts are her only hope to regain some credibility after losing in court.
I made further inquiries on the day. It transpired that another gossiping ancient woman (R from QLD, who unluckily survived WW2) had been eavesdropping on a private conversation. Carol did not have the wisdom to differentiate between hearsay gossip and a written claim of a real incident to be investigated.
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