Soap Opera Scotland's Game of Gnomes - Series One
by Rab Christie
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: EPISODE ELEVEN - Making up stories.
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As Scott MacGnome made the by now all too familiar walk across the Sunset Bridge over the Dirty Old River towards the Mother of All Parliaments, he wished, not for the first time, that he could get a transfer to Hillywood. If only. He’d recently seen the other side of the coin. It was Conference season and he’d been back up in Northron lands at the Gnome Conference for the Hillywood Parliament – the devolved government which made the most of the limited powers they had to try and make the lives of their own people (because gnomes are people too) as good as they could be when they weren’t allowed to be Independent. It was light years away from MOP. The atmosphere was positive, the gnomes were friendly and it gave just the taste of what might come if only Independence had been achieved. Scott went back to MOP the following week with a mixture of resolve and dismay. He knew he had a job to do, but he wished he didn’t have to. He felt like the sacrificial gnome that he was. But at least he knew the people back home appreciated his efforts. That counted for a lot. It got him through the week. One week more.
But following on from that he’d had a hell of a weekend. It had been the weekend from hell. His past had caught up with him. Except that there wasn’t any past to catch up with him – so they invented one – and trying to disprove something that never happened is about the hardest thing you can do, isn’t it?
On the Saturday afternoon, having done his Friday surgery stint at his constituency office, and spent Saturday morning at a local community event, Scott was just about to sit down and watch some sport when the phone rang. It was the Gnomeland News and they told him they were about to make him their front page story.
‘What for?’ asked Scott. For just a brief moment he wondered if he’d finally got his message through on the complete inadequacy of the MOP system. And in a way he was right. His message had got through loud and clear. In that he’d obviously pissed off some very important top level One Nation Secret Gnome lords. Because now was payback time.
You won’t know, because I’ve never told you, and you never thought to ask, that before he became a member of the MOP Scott had a life – and with a job and everything. It wasn’t much of a career, if we’re honest, but it was an honest living. He sold things on the internet. Being remotely located, and despite having pitiful Broadband services, he carved out (or eked out) a living as an online retailer. Unlike the big boys, he paid his taxes. And he provided a good service. Not always next day delivery, but first class by any stretch of the imagination.
When he’d joined the MOP he’d got his sister involved to help out at the virtual coalface and she kept up the good work. But every Sunday he did a thorough check of all his business affairs just to make sure that things were ‘ticking over’, as indeed they were.
So it came as something of a surprise for Scott to be told by the journalist on the other end of the phone that he was being investigated by the Gnome Trading Standards for ‘irregularities’. He knew there were no such irregularities. He asked for more information.
‘Sorry, more than my job’s worth. You’ll have to buy the paper like everyone else, mate,’ said the journognome and put the phone down.
Scott tried to phone Gnome Trading Standards to find out what the problem was, but of course they don’t work weekends. So he spent the weekend wracking his brains, going through his business records with a fine tooth comb and generally sweating it, trying to work out what he’d done wrong.
Stupid Scott. What you did wrong isn’t going to be found in your business records, is it? That’s not where you’ve committed an indiscretion.
The Sunday Gnome had, as promised, made Scott the front page feature. He was, as you might say, smeared all over the place. He was none the wiser as to what he’d actually supposedly done, though, because the piece was strong on lurid and weak on detail. But mud sticks, and the glaury sharny dubs all over the paper certainly made folk give Scott a wide berth on his journey South on the Sunday evening. Some pointed and stared. Openly. Which is not what gnomes usually do. They consider it rude. But the whiff of scandal, even if wholly invented, causes some gnomes to forget themselves. Some of them look no further than gossip and headlines. Which is just what the Gnome media thrive on. Their business model is based on selling papers. They have to justify the prices they charge for advertisers against sales achieved, and scandal sells. Nice and easy. As long as you don’t care anything for truth. Which of course they don’t. Their interest is the bottom line. First, last, and always.
So it was, on the Monday morning as Scott walked towards the MOP, and just after he wished he was a member of the Hillywood Parliament – it all fell into place.
He’d been stitched up.
And so, of course, it turned out to be. Scott was called straight into the leader of #TeamMacGnome in the MOP’s office – only a little less cupboard-like than his own – to explain himself. And it was pretty easy to explain. Done nothing wrong. No evidence. No crime. Nothing.
Within half an hour, checks were made to the Gnome Trading Standards and they confirmed that they’d received a ‘strange’ complaint about sub-standard goods not delivered on time which they dismissed because it was a) not within their remit and b) it was really obviously some kind of attempt at a stitch up. No one could pin down who – but really no one needed to.
‘We didn’t take it seriously,’ The Trading Standards Officer said, ‘you’d be surprised what lengths some people will go to make trouble. And to be honest, we can sort of smell it out here. And this one stank.’
Which made Scott feel a bit better. Until Angus MacFetchum told him that there was no way they’d get the paper to print a retraction.
‘You’ve just got to suck it up,’ Angus said. ‘Let’s have a coffee. It’s a bit early for anything stronger!’
But if Scott thought it was all a storm in a coffee cup that would blow over in time, the smirks on the faces of the One Nation MOPpers as he made his way to the restaurant for his coffee said it all.
‘A little local difficulty?’ one of them asked him in that suave pseudo chummy One Nation way.
‘No problems at all,’ Angus replied. ‘A pitiful smear attempt, our boy’s got nothing to worry about.’
‘There’s always something to worry about,’ came the reply. It cracked out like a warning shot – a bullet to the brain was on its way.
‘Let’s take it positively,’ Angus said. ‘You’ve clearly got them rattled, so that means you’ve been doing something right.’
‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take,’ Scott said. ‘This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t what I thought it would be like.’
‘Come on, Scott,’ Angus replied. ‘You’re big enough to brush this off. It’ll be someone else next week.’
‘Don’t give me the ‘stand up to bullies’ speech,’ Scott said. ‘I thought that got left behind in the playground.’
And for anyone else of you who thinks that, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but no, bullying does not get left behind in the playground. It grows up just like we do and the refined versions to be found in just about every workplace only confirm that the ‘child’ which supposedly lives in every adult is a mean little bullying bastard who would be none the worse for a good clip round the ear.
Let’s just recap here. Scott MacGnome had one goal. Independence for his country. He was given the overwhelming support of his fellow gnomes and he went to represent them in a parliament in a country he didn’t recognise as his own, doing a job that he wished he didn’t have to do. He was sacrificing himself to work towards a greater good. And the real sickener is that all of this could have been avoided if the One Nation Southron Gnomes had simply realised that ‘one ring to bind them’ is a power crazed, outmoded, imperial dream whose time has long gone and should be consigned to the pages of a fantasy novel.
Scott’s crime was representing the views of his fellow country-gnomes. To the best of his ability. Sure, he pointed out the weak spots in the system. Some might even say that was part of his job. But if he’d been given the option to leave MOP well alone and go to Hillywood, free to pursue independent living, he’d have been off like a shot. As would all of #TeamMacGnome. They didn’t want to be there. But they did what they could with the rotten hand they’d been dealt. As it turns out, far too effectively. 56 thorns in the side were too much for even the rhino hide of One Nation gnomes to bear.
Never forget that #TeamMacGnome have sacrificed themselves for the rest of the gnomes. And like 56 green bottles, One Nation’s goal was to make sure each one ‘accidently fell’ before the parliament was done. It’s a dirty business politics, that’s for sure. And it won’t have changed by next week. That’s a certainty.
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: EPISODE ELEVEN - Making up stories.
_____________________________________________________________________
As Scott MacGnome made the by now all too familiar walk across the Sunset Bridge over the Dirty Old River towards the Mother of All Parliaments, he wished, not for the first time, that he could get a transfer to Hillywood. If only. He’d recently seen the other side of the coin. It was Conference season and he’d been back up in Northron lands at the Gnome Conference for the Hillywood Parliament – the devolved government which made the most of the limited powers they had to try and make the lives of their own people (because gnomes are people too) as good as they could be when they weren’t allowed to be Independent. It was light years away from MOP. The atmosphere was positive, the gnomes were friendly and it gave just the taste of what might come if only Independence had been achieved. Scott went back to MOP the following week with a mixture of resolve and dismay. He knew he had a job to do, but he wished he didn’t have to. He felt like the sacrificial gnome that he was. But at least he knew the people back home appreciated his efforts. That counted for a lot. It got him through the week. One week more.
But following on from that he’d had a hell of a weekend. It had been the weekend from hell. His past had caught up with him. Except that there wasn’t any past to catch up with him – so they invented one – and trying to disprove something that never happened is about the hardest thing you can do, isn’t it?
On the Saturday afternoon, having done his Friday surgery stint at his constituency office, and spent Saturday morning at a local community event, Scott was just about to sit down and watch some sport when the phone rang. It was the Gnomeland News and they told him they were about to make him their front page story.
‘What for?’ asked Scott. For just a brief moment he wondered if he’d finally got his message through on the complete inadequacy of the MOP system. And in a way he was right. His message had got through loud and clear. In that he’d obviously pissed off some very important top level One Nation Secret Gnome lords. Because now was payback time.
You won’t know, because I’ve never told you, and you never thought to ask, that before he became a member of the MOP Scott had a life – and with a job and everything. It wasn’t much of a career, if we’re honest, but it was an honest living. He sold things on the internet. Being remotely located, and despite having pitiful Broadband services, he carved out (or eked out) a living as an online retailer. Unlike the big boys, he paid his taxes. And he provided a good service. Not always next day delivery, but first class by any stretch of the imagination.
When he’d joined the MOP he’d got his sister involved to help out at the virtual coalface and she kept up the good work. But every Sunday he did a thorough check of all his business affairs just to make sure that things were ‘ticking over’, as indeed they were.
So it came as something of a surprise for Scott to be told by the journalist on the other end of the phone that he was being investigated by the Gnome Trading Standards for ‘irregularities’. He knew there were no such irregularities. He asked for more information.
‘Sorry, more than my job’s worth. You’ll have to buy the paper like everyone else, mate,’ said the journognome and put the phone down.
Scott tried to phone Gnome Trading Standards to find out what the problem was, but of course they don’t work weekends. So he spent the weekend wracking his brains, going through his business records with a fine tooth comb and generally sweating it, trying to work out what he’d done wrong.
Stupid Scott. What you did wrong isn’t going to be found in your business records, is it? That’s not where you’ve committed an indiscretion.
The Sunday Gnome had, as promised, made Scott the front page feature. He was, as you might say, smeared all over the place. He was none the wiser as to what he’d actually supposedly done, though, because the piece was strong on lurid and weak on detail. But mud sticks, and the glaury sharny dubs all over the paper certainly made folk give Scott a wide berth on his journey South on the Sunday evening. Some pointed and stared. Openly. Which is not what gnomes usually do. They consider it rude. But the whiff of scandal, even if wholly invented, causes some gnomes to forget themselves. Some of them look no further than gossip and headlines. Which is just what the Gnome media thrive on. Their business model is based on selling papers. They have to justify the prices they charge for advertisers against sales achieved, and scandal sells. Nice and easy. As long as you don’t care anything for truth. Which of course they don’t. Their interest is the bottom line. First, last, and always.
So it was, on the Monday morning as Scott walked towards the MOP, and just after he wished he was a member of the Hillywood Parliament – it all fell into place.
He’d been stitched up.
And so, of course, it turned out to be. Scott was called straight into the leader of #TeamMacGnome in the MOP’s office – only a little less cupboard-like than his own – to explain himself. And it was pretty easy to explain. Done nothing wrong. No evidence. No crime. Nothing.
Within half an hour, checks were made to the Gnome Trading Standards and they confirmed that they’d received a ‘strange’ complaint about sub-standard goods not delivered on time which they dismissed because it was a) not within their remit and b) it was really obviously some kind of attempt at a stitch up. No one could pin down who – but really no one needed to.
‘We didn’t take it seriously,’ The Trading Standards Officer said, ‘you’d be surprised what lengths some people will go to make trouble. And to be honest, we can sort of smell it out here. And this one stank.’
Which made Scott feel a bit better. Until Angus MacFetchum told him that there was no way they’d get the paper to print a retraction.
‘You’ve just got to suck it up,’ Angus said. ‘Let’s have a coffee. It’s a bit early for anything stronger!’
But if Scott thought it was all a storm in a coffee cup that would blow over in time, the smirks on the faces of the One Nation MOPpers as he made his way to the restaurant for his coffee said it all.
‘A little local difficulty?’ one of them asked him in that suave pseudo chummy One Nation way.
‘No problems at all,’ Angus replied. ‘A pitiful smear attempt, our boy’s got nothing to worry about.’
‘There’s always something to worry about,’ came the reply. It cracked out like a warning shot – a bullet to the brain was on its way.
‘Let’s take it positively,’ Angus said. ‘You’ve clearly got them rattled, so that means you’ve been doing something right.’
‘I don’t know how much more of this I can take,’ Scott said. ‘This isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t what I thought it would be like.’
‘Come on, Scott,’ Angus replied. ‘You’re big enough to brush this off. It’ll be someone else next week.’
‘Don’t give me the ‘stand up to bullies’ speech,’ Scott said. ‘I thought that got left behind in the playground.’
And for anyone else of you who thinks that, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but no, bullying does not get left behind in the playground. It grows up just like we do and the refined versions to be found in just about every workplace only confirm that the ‘child’ which supposedly lives in every adult is a mean little bullying bastard who would be none the worse for a good clip round the ear.
Let’s just recap here. Scott MacGnome had one goal. Independence for his country. He was given the overwhelming support of his fellow gnomes and he went to represent them in a parliament in a country he didn’t recognise as his own, doing a job that he wished he didn’t have to do. He was sacrificing himself to work towards a greater good. And the real sickener is that all of this could have been avoided if the One Nation Southron Gnomes had simply realised that ‘one ring to bind them’ is a power crazed, outmoded, imperial dream whose time has long gone and should be consigned to the pages of a fantasy novel.
Scott’s crime was representing the views of his fellow country-gnomes. To the best of his ability. Sure, he pointed out the weak spots in the system. Some might even say that was part of his job. But if he’d been given the option to leave MOP well alone and go to Hillywood, free to pursue independent living, he’d have been off like a shot. As would all of #TeamMacGnome. They didn’t want to be there. But they did what they could with the rotten hand they’d been dealt. As it turns out, far too effectively. 56 thorns in the side were too much for even the rhino hide of One Nation gnomes to bear.
Never forget that #TeamMacGnome have sacrificed themselves for the rest of the gnomes. And like 56 green bottles, One Nation’s goal was to make sure each one ‘accidently fell’ before the parliament was done. It’s a dirty business politics, that’s for sure. And it won’t have changed by next week. That’s a certainty.
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.