Soap Opera Scotland's Game of Gnomes - Series One
by Rab Christie
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: EPISODE SEVEN - The Great Gnome Migration.
_____________________________________________________________________
With a summer as wet as GnomeNation had this year, perhaps it’s not surprising that I should be writing about floods. But the flood I’m talking about is not of water, it’s of Gnomes. From all over Greater Gnomeland, migrants, or refugees (depending on your perspective), were flooding across borders.
Scott had seen many of them during his time in Greece, but when the Prime Mover in the MOP described them as a tsunami, it got even some of the less radical Gnomes agitated. It may surprise you to know that Gnomes in general consider themselves pretty moral entities and caring to boot. All that I’ve told you thus far about the corridors of Gnomic power may give the lie to this statement but you should believe me – there are many good gnomes out there as well as the power-hungry ones. And since the Gnomic Referendum, a summer of discontent allied with a sense of Hope from those who were usually considered hopeless had conspired to give voice to those Gnomes who had had enough. Which was most of them.
Actually, it’s easy enough to state. The Gnomes who had enough had not had enough although they clearly had too much and thought they could never have enough and the Gnomes who didn’t have anything like enough, had had more than enough. Clear?
So, while back from their holidays in the MOP, #TeamMacGnome were doing all in their limited power to try and change things, the other gnomes were getting restless and all over Gnomeland they were taking to the streets and taking matters into their own hands. Solidarity was becoming something concrete.
Governments all over the Gnomic Eurozone were trying to prevent the influx of migrants – but the Gnome in the street didn’t see migrants, they saw refugees. As the global gnomes went walkabout, the gnomes of the Home Nations felt like they were looking in the mirror. They saw gnomes very like themselves, bruised and battered by their own governments and power elites. The response was fulsome. Gnome SM was taken over with gnomes holding up placards saying they’d take a refugee into their own homes. That really worried the Governments. Especially the MOP tops. And Scott MacGnome at last saw a way to make a difference.
The Hillywood Parliament (which Scott so often wished he was part of instead of the MOP) stood up against the MOP and demanded that the Northron Gnomes be allowed to take in refugees. Whatever the cost. ‘They are gnomes first,’ the Leader of Hillywood said. The groundswell of Gnomic wisdom was behind her.
Gnomes gave their spare clothes. The gave their spare tents and sleeping bags. Some just used it as an opportunity to chuck away all their old crap, it’s true, but most Gnomes had something of a social conscience and tried hard to help others in time of need. And Scott’s email inbox was flooded by questions as to what practical help could be offered.
Scott was sick of sitting around trying to change the MOP. The wheels didn’t even grind slowly, they were seized with years of the stoor of privilege and lack of care for the ordinary gnome. If he couldn’t fight from within, he’d take the battle outside. But he’d use their resources.
And so, from his pokey wee office in the least fashionable part of the MOP building, Scott organised a rescue mission. It was a triumph.
And this is what he did. He co-ordinated ordinary gnomes, not just from Northron lands but right across Gnome Nation. The call was to take a weekend break, in a caravan or just in your car. Hundreds of thousands of Gnomes left their homes and drove down to the Southron ports. They crossed over into mainland EuroGnome world and there they each picked up a carload of ‘visitors’. Those with caravans and more time went further and either dropped the caravans off at sites so that displaced gnomes had a place to lay their heads – something better than the canvas refugee/migrant bases that were reluctantly springing up in a variety of nations. Others just picked up ‘guests’ and drove them home.
It was an act of simple elegance. You say you’d be happy to house a refugee – then go get one. They’re stuck without travel documents or visas, but the EuroGnome zone was meant to be a visa free zone – so pick them up and bring them home.
You scoff. It couldn’t be done. Not in the real world. Ah, well that’s where you discover that maybe Gnomes have more balls than other people we might mention. #Gnomepower took over that wet summer. Like I said, those who didn’t have enough had had more than enough and they took direct action.
You say that it’s not possible to come over into GnomeNation without a passport, and it’s true that the MOP always held out on that one, much to the annoyance of the rest of the EuroGnomes. I’m here to tell you that if, like Scott MacGnome, you refuse to listen to the word ‘impossible’ then it can be done.
Picture if you will, hundreds of cars full of gnomes every day crowding their way onto ferries. Each car has at least 3 refugees in it. But they are guests, tourists, holiday-makers, friends or ‘relatives’ of those with legal documents driving the cars.
If you don’t want the ferry network to grind to a halt there comes a point after which you just have to turn a blind eye. And the EuroGnomes started to turn that blind eye. There were too many gnomes to ‘process’ and not enough gnomes willing to do that processing. The up-side of the great EuroGnomic policy of ‘pass the parcel’ meant that movement was inevitable. No one wanted a bottleneck in their backyard, so to speak. Let free movement commence. Not officially, of course. But there comes a point when all the officials in the world (especially on a Sunday) can’t stop the will of the gnome.
It was one thing to try and gnomehandle all these migrant gnomes, but quite another to have an entire nation of holidaymakers trying to get home on a Sunday night – think of the economic disaster if they all didn’t turn up to work on a Monday morning. Not to mention that you couldn’t really put holiday-makers into refugee camps now, could you? Like I said, it might seem impossible, as indeed many things do. But really all it required was some thinking out of the box. And actions to match words.
Scott’s practical social policy, which required no debate, no bill to be passed, no braying like donkeys in the MOP chamber, made sure that each refugee gnome was adopted, or sponsored by a GnomeNation gnome. It only took a fortnight of co-ordinated, committed action. Everyone now had a gnome to go to, if not a gnome to call their own.
In consequence gnomes achieved what you might consider impossible – and of course what the One Nation MOPs considered inordinately undesirable – they played free market with the movement of people. One Nation for ALL Gnomes, was but one of the slogans being bandied around. Ironic when you think about it. But one in the eye for the One Nation Gnomes.
Now the realists amongst you will suggest that this was just ‘storing up trouble’ for the future. Maybe so, but it was a well co-ordinated act of what we might call humanitarian (if we weren’t talking about gnomes) relief. Taking the reins from government, from charities, and giving them to the ordinary gnome. No spare bedrooms in Gnome Nation now. So no Bedroom Tax to pay. That’s freed up a bit of cash to start with, surely? Or just sent the social care budget into meltdown. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It couldn’t be allowed to collapse entirely, so it meant that MOP would have to start actually thinking of solutions that might work for the ordinary gnome in the street, not just feathering the nests of those for whom privatisation is the Holy Grail.
So you see Gnomes, not being people, didn’t wimp out when it got tough. They went a step further than sending out their old clothes and sending money to big charities who might waste it on admin. They got to the heart of the problem and they took the refugee gnomes into their hearts and into their homes. You say you want a revolution? Well, this is revolution, Gnome style.
And #TeamMacGnome then started the real work. The work of making sure that the Governments actually paid for the refugees. Of course, real Gnomes were footing the bill to start with – but then Gnomes, like people, throw too much of their weekly shopping budget away anyway, and having ‘guests’ to stay does pump up the utility bill, but somehow one still feels warmer with the heating on less often when you don’t have to constantly see crowds of gnomes just like you being herded like cattle. Heart-warming, one might say.
And guess what? Many of the displaced gnomes had useful skills. They could be a real asset to GnomeNation, and #TeamMacGnome began a sensible, co-ordinated skills audit. Matching gnomes to homes and matching gnomes to jobs and the sort of overhaul of society which no one could ever imagine was well on the way. All without the approval of MOP.
It can be done. All it takes is someone to fly in the face of what’s possible. And that someone was Scott MacGnome. The ordinary gnomes were behind him all the way. But he’d become a parliamentary ticking bomb. A loose cannon. A revolutionary.
You may say I’m a dreamer. I’m here to tell you that the line between fantasy and reality is a very narrow one, and it can be stepped over. If Gnomes can do it, why can’t we?
Swearwords: None.
Description: EPISODE SEVEN - The Great Gnome Migration.
_____________________________________________________________________
With a summer as wet as GnomeNation had this year, perhaps it’s not surprising that I should be writing about floods. But the flood I’m talking about is not of water, it’s of Gnomes. From all over Greater Gnomeland, migrants, or refugees (depending on your perspective), were flooding across borders.
Scott had seen many of them during his time in Greece, but when the Prime Mover in the MOP described them as a tsunami, it got even some of the less radical Gnomes agitated. It may surprise you to know that Gnomes in general consider themselves pretty moral entities and caring to boot. All that I’ve told you thus far about the corridors of Gnomic power may give the lie to this statement but you should believe me – there are many good gnomes out there as well as the power-hungry ones. And since the Gnomic Referendum, a summer of discontent allied with a sense of Hope from those who were usually considered hopeless had conspired to give voice to those Gnomes who had had enough. Which was most of them.
Actually, it’s easy enough to state. The Gnomes who had enough had not had enough although they clearly had too much and thought they could never have enough and the Gnomes who didn’t have anything like enough, had had more than enough. Clear?
So, while back from their holidays in the MOP, #TeamMacGnome were doing all in their limited power to try and change things, the other gnomes were getting restless and all over Gnomeland they were taking to the streets and taking matters into their own hands. Solidarity was becoming something concrete.
Governments all over the Gnomic Eurozone were trying to prevent the influx of migrants – but the Gnome in the street didn’t see migrants, they saw refugees. As the global gnomes went walkabout, the gnomes of the Home Nations felt like they were looking in the mirror. They saw gnomes very like themselves, bruised and battered by their own governments and power elites. The response was fulsome. Gnome SM was taken over with gnomes holding up placards saying they’d take a refugee into their own homes. That really worried the Governments. Especially the MOP tops. And Scott MacGnome at last saw a way to make a difference.
The Hillywood Parliament (which Scott so often wished he was part of instead of the MOP) stood up against the MOP and demanded that the Northron Gnomes be allowed to take in refugees. Whatever the cost. ‘They are gnomes first,’ the Leader of Hillywood said. The groundswell of Gnomic wisdom was behind her.
Gnomes gave their spare clothes. The gave their spare tents and sleeping bags. Some just used it as an opportunity to chuck away all their old crap, it’s true, but most Gnomes had something of a social conscience and tried hard to help others in time of need. And Scott’s email inbox was flooded by questions as to what practical help could be offered.
Scott was sick of sitting around trying to change the MOP. The wheels didn’t even grind slowly, they were seized with years of the stoor of privilege and lack of care for the ordinary gnome. If he couldn’t fight from within, he’d take the battle outside. But he’d use their resources.
And so, from his pokey wee office in the least fashionable part of the MOP building, Scott organised a rescue mission. It was a triumph.
And this is what he did. He co-ordinated ordinary gnomes, not just from Northron lands but right across Gnome Nation. The call was to take a weekend break, in a caravan or just in your car. Hundreds of thousands of Gnomes left their homes and drove down to the Southron ports. They crossed over into mainland EuroGnome world and there they each picked up a carload of ‘visitors’. Those with caravans and more time went further and either dropped the caravans off at sites so that displaced gnomes had a place to lay their heads – something better than the canvas refugee/migrant bases that were reluctantly springing up in a variety of nations. Others just picked up ‘guests’ and drove them home.
It was an act of simple elegance. You say you’d be happy to house a refugee – then go get one. They’re stuck without travel documents or visas, but the EuroGnome zone was meant to be a visa free zone – so pick them up and bring them home.
You scoff. It couldn’t be done. Not in the real world. Ah, well that’s where you discover that maybe Gnomes have more balls than other people we might mention. #Gnomepower took over that wet summer. Like I said, those who didn’t have enough had had more than enough and they took direct action.
You say that it’s not possible to come over into GnomeNation without a passport, and it’s true that the MOP always held out on that one, much to the annoyance of the rest of the EuroGnomes. I’m here to tell you that if, like Scott MacGnome, you refuse to listen to the word ‘impossible’ then it can be done.
Picture if you will, hundreds of cars full of gnomes every day crowding their way onto ferries. Each car has at least 3 refugees in it. But they are guests, tourists, holiday-makers, friends or ‘relatives’ of those with legal documents driving the cars.
If you don’t want the ferry network to grind to a halt there comes a point after which you just have to turn a blind eye. And the EuroGnomes started to turn that blind eye. There were too many gnomes to ‘process’ and not enough gnomes willing to do that processing. The up-side of the great EuroGnomic policy of ‘pass the parcel’ meant that movement was inevitable. No one wanted a bottleneck in their backyard, so to speak. Let free movement commence. Not officially, of course. But there comes a point when all the officials in the world (especially on a Sunday) can’t stop the will of the gnome.
It was one thing to try and gnomehandle all these migrant gnomes, but quite another to have an entire nation of holidaymakers trying to get home on a Sunday night – think of the economic disaster if they all didn’t turn up to work on a Monday morning. Not to mention that you couldn’t really put holiday-makers into refugee camps now, could you? Like I said, it might seem impossible, as indeed many things do. But really all it required was some thinking out of the box. And actions to match words.
Scott’s practical social policy, which required no debate, no bill to be passed, no braying like donkeys in the MOP chamber, made sure that each refugee gnome was adopted, or sponsored by a GnomeNation gnome. It only took a fortnight of co-ordinated, committed action. Everyone now had a gnome to go to, if not a gnome to call their own.
In consequence gnomes achieved what you might consider impossible – and of course what the One Nation MOPs considered inordinately undesirable – they played free market with the movement of people. One Nation for ALL Gnomes, was but one of the slogans being bandied around. Ironic when you think about it. But one in the eye for the One Nation Gnomes.
Now the realists amongst you will suggest that this was just ‘storing up trouble’ for the future. Maybe so, but it was a well co-ordinated act of what we might call humanitarian (if we weren’t talking about gnomes) relief. Taking the reins from government, from charities, and giving them to the ordinary gnome. No spare bedrooms in Gnome Nation now. So no Bedroom Tax to pay. That’s freed up a bit of cash to start with, surely? Or just sent the social care budget into meltdown. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It couldn’t be allowed to collapse entirely, so it meant that MOP would have to start actually thinking of solutions that might work for the ordinary gnome in the street, not just feathering the nests of those for whom privatisation is the Holy Grail.
So you see Gnomes, not being people, didn’t wimp out when it got tough. They went a step further than sending out their old clothes and sending money to big charities who might waste it on admin. They got to the heart of the problem and they took the refugee gnomes into their hearts and into their homes. You say you want a revolution? Well, this is revolution, Gnome style.
And #TeamMacGnome then started the real work. The work of making sure that the Governments actually paid for the refugees. Of course, real Gnomes were footing the bill to start with – but then Gnomes, like people, throw too much of their weekly shopping budget away anyway, and having ‘guests’ to stay does pump up the utility bill, but somehow one still feels warmer with the heating on less often when you don’t have to constantly see crowds of gnomes just like you being herded like cattle. Heart-warming, one might say.
And guess what? Many of the displaced gnomes had useful skills. They could be a real asset to GnomeNation, and #TeamMacGnome began a sensible, co-ordinated skills audit. Matching gnomes to homes and matching gnomes to jobs and the sort of overhaul of society which no one could ever imagine was well on the way. All without the approval of MOP.
It can be done. All it takes is someone to fly in the face of what’s possible. And that someone was Scott MacGnome. The ordinary gnomes were behind him all the way. But he’d become a parliamentary ticking bomb. A loose cannon. A revolutionary.
You may say I’m a dreamer. I’m here to tell you that the line between fantasy and reality is a very narrow one, and it can be stepped over. If Gnomes can do it, why can’t we?
About the Author
G. R. Christie (Rab) is from a farming background. His political awakening started in 1996 with the BSE crisis and matured in 2001 with Foot and Mouth. He then studied journalism and politics and he now combines the pitchfork with the pen – or the crap with the computer!
Rab is familiar to many from his political/cultural commentary/rants on McRenegades and is editor in waiting at Deveron Press – launching in December 2015. He’s having a go at satire with the latest McStorytellers McSerial, Soap Opera Scotland’s Game of Gnomes – Series One.
Rab is familiar to many from his political/cultural commentary/rants on McRenegades and is editor in waiting at Deveron Press – launching in December 2015. He’s having a go at satire with the latest McStorytellers McSerial, Soap Opera Scotland’s Game of Gnomes – Series One.