I’m not entirely sure, but I think I’m turning into Rob Goossens. It must be the result of too long exposure to this impeccably dressed media journalist, who has been reporting abuses day after day over the past week. The Voice indicated. Even if he wasn’t at the desk at RTL Boulevard he was there, beamed in via a video link and adorned with two wireless white earplugs. And even if he’s not with RTL Boulevard appeared in the broadcast, he was still on television. On Monday night he sat at the bar with VI Today, pressure to indicate. Maybe he was on more television shows, or on the radio, or in other places. At least in my head, where it seems to be a good place to be.
The symptoms are clear: I feel a constant and inexplicable need to put on a turtleneck; my voice becomes more monotonous and faster; I can suddenly tell endless stories without taking a breather; and an insatiable hunger for news about Marco Borsato has taken hold of me. A pocket square grows out of my breast pocket. It seems only a matter of time before my wife has to sign up for Help, my husband is Rob Goossens.
Another consequence of following the latest news around both professionally and maniacally The Voice of Holland is that the balance of power between RTL Boulevard and Show news finally clear to me. On the one hand there is Rob Goossens, the young dog of RTL Boulevard, and on the other side, mastodon Albert Verlinde. Under Verlinde, Goossens made his first flying hours a few years ago at the flopped 6 Inside. In May, Goossens (who is only 31, so I’m still improving in that regard) got a blow from his teacher after he RTL Boulevard suggested that singer Tino Martin was using cocaine. That was not right and Goossens backtracked a bit. Not enough, thought Albert Verlinde, who at the time Show news ‘just really cowardly’.
So probably Goossens was rubbing hands in front of the television when Albert Verlinde was in Show news last week Humberto Tan on the burning pile of The Voice wanted to throw by accusing the presenter with completely baseless statements of voice-like misconduct.
After Tan had reported the matter, Verlinde backtracked a bit a day later. Not enough, according to Goossens. Verlinde has to crawl through the dust on his stomach. Goossens did in the broadcast of RTL Boulevard Tuesday himself suggested what Verlinde should say: ‘I just made a very ugly insinuation, I shouldn’t have done that. I’m a stupid jerk.’
That, of course, had nothing to do with sincere advice and everything to do with cold-blooded revenge. The teacher humiliated by the student. The balance shifted. Rob Goossens has passed Albert Verlinde. Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. How that must feel for Goossens, I have no idea. But soon you can ask me yourself.