Jack MacRoary's Guide to the General Election:
Episode Seven
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: Remember, remember...
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Remember Nanny Alzheimer? Of course you do. She’s the one with the wonky memory of course, not you. But in case you don’t remember her I’ll remind you that she’s my Dad’s mum and that she lives in a care home just outside of Tattybogle. She’s been there for the past ten years more or less, though she comes from near Dumfries. And is always telling us she wants to go back there. Except when she forgets, and thinks that she is there.
And what’s that got to do with the price of fish? As she would say in the days before she was Nanny Alzheimer (which I can just about remember because I was quite young). Well it’s got a lot to do with the General Election, as it turns out.
Because you know, every vote counts. Even Nanny Alzheimer’s. You know how I’ve been having to watch all the political debates on the TV? Well, I’m not the only one. One thing about the care home Nanny Alzheimer lives in is that they have the TV on all the time. And if they aren’t in the TV lounge there’s the radio blaring out all the time too. There’s never a moment’s peace, in there Mum says.
I asked why they did it. Mum said it was to make them feel like they have company but Dad said it was because they thought they were all so doo-lally that it didn’t matter as long as there’s noise drowning out their ravings… but, he said, this has come back to bite them.
Because we got a phone call from Nanny Alzheimer. And then another one. And another. All hours of day and night she’s been ringing up since the last TV leaders debate asking my Dad not to forget to take her to the polling station. Which of course he will do, because Nanny Alzheimer is (apparently) entitled to her vote the same as the rest of us.
She was getting very distressed though (I don’t blame her, this election has been driving us all round the bend, hasn’t it?) and so Dad and Mum decided to go and find out what was going on.
The first thing was that Nanny Alzheimer was disgusted. She said so. She said
‘I saw Mr Ed shoot Jim in the foot.’
Of course they all thought she was just hallucinating cause people with dementia do that sometimes. But on further investigation (which is what you should always do when speaking to someone with dementia – but not in a nasty way, in a kind and listening way) it turned out that it was when Ed Miliband said that he wouldn’t work with the SNP whatever, which basically means he’d rather stay in opposition (on full salary) with David Cameron in power than try to build a better UK according to the will of ALL the people. Nanny Alzheimer didn’t like that.
So Dad promised her that he’d be sure to remember to take her to the polling station and we went home. And then we got another phone call from the care home. It was Nanny Alzheimer again asking my dad to remember… yes, you’d guessed it.
She was most insistent that we ‘hold their feet to the fire’. And dad said, ‘Well I bet Jim Murphy’s feet are burning now’ and Nanny laughed.
And then they hatched a plan.
Nanny Alzheimer is so determined that we’ll get SNP’s into the General Election (even if she’s forgotten that she’s not in Dumfries near the border but up by DrumTumhsie and miles away from it) that she set up this plot with my dad to get ALL the people in the care home to go and vote at Tattybogle Primary on May 7th.
And the plan is this. My mum and the activists have banded together to hire Brian the Brain’s dad’s coach to take all the people in the care home to vote. I can’t help but thinking this might turn out even worse than Micro the Pig (who is NOT going to be going along to vote with the MacRoarys this time). And Dad pointed out to Nanny Alzheimer that she couldn’t MAKE all the others vote SNP because Nanny Alzheimer thinks that if SNP’s take them to the polls the people won’t feel right about voting for anyone else. At least that’s what Dad thought she thought.
But of course you can’t ever really know what other people are thinking and when he said this she looked at him like he was about six and said, ‘I know that, Willie, but once we’ve all seen the Scottish Leaders Debate everyone will want to vote for that nice Nicola Sturgeon.’
And Dad had had enough of the phone calls, so he agreed and left it at that. But I have some experience of serials now and I know enough to know that that particular story isn’t over. So watch this space.
I was just glad that on Sunday it would be the last of the TV debates. And that within a week my mum would be back home making us chips and washing our socks and doing all the things that she’s not been able to do for the last month or so. I’ve run out of matching socks because I forgot the colour rule and, to be honest, anarchy has prevailed in the MacRoary underwear department. I think John might even have been wearing a pair of my pants the other day when he went out with Heather because he didn’t have any clean ones of his own. Mine are a bit small for him, so I hope he suffered! I don’t know which pair it is so I can’t quarantine them or feed them to Micro the Pig which is surely all they are good for once John’s had them on.
And then of course Sunday came and went. The debate came and went. It was in Scotland and Glenn Campbell chaired it. He told them all at the beginning that people were fed up with them all shouting over each other (which we were) and asked them to promise not to do that. I didn’t really hear them reply – Mr Marker would have been shouting ‘Can’t hear you’ to them. But as Mrs Lovall would say, his words ‘fell on stony ground’. Because it wasn’t long before it turned all shouty. Actually, apart from it being all about the same boring old stuff, it got quite exciting because at one point I thought Ruth Davidson and Jim Murphy were going to have a square go. (In case anyone doesn’t know what that means, it means they looked like they were going to have a fight.) They both accused each other of lying and it got very heated.
I’m only mentioning that because it was much more of a ‘real’ fight than the stupid nonsense that’s been going on about Mhairi Black (she’s not the Mhairi in my class by the way). She’s only 20 and she’s standing against Douglas Alexander and it’s getting everyone really upset. The thing is last year at the Conference after the Referendum, Mhairi said that she’d found it hard not to ‘put the head’ on some smug Labour people – and we know exactly how she feels here in Tattybogle. I remember her talking at the conference and I thought she was amazing for someone who was only that young. Don’t get me wrong, I like Heather, John’s girlfriend, but Mhairi Black is a hundred times better than Heather.
Anyway, what she said has been blown out of all proportion, probably because English people don’t understand our ‘colourful figurative language’ (my mum said). So I’m giving you an example. To say ‘I’ll put the head on you’ isn’t really a death threat of Charlie Hebdo proportions, it’s more just using figurative speech to explain how one feels – which was GUTTED. There’s even a poem we did in school which has that phrase in it, and it’s something folk just say. If someone said that to me in DrumTumshie I’d probably say ‘Aye, you n’ whose army?’ or something and you know there’s been a lot of bullying over the years in DrumTumshie Academy and I don’t think anyone would report ‘I’ll put the head on you’ as bullying or threatening or anything. When someone says that it doesn’t mean they are going to headbutt them for real. Someone should tell the Daily Torygraph that, dad said. And John pointed out that if someone was going to put the head on someone else they’d just do it, because the most important thing in such a situation was the element of surprise and so saying you’re going to do it makes it obvious you aren’t. And we all agreed that if there was to be any violence done in this election, it was much more likely to come on Sunday night between Ruth and Jim during the leaders debate.
I was just glad it was the last one (and I bet everyone else was glad too!). Nicola Sturgeon didn’t do shouty but she stood up for herself. She had to be quiet a lot of the time because mum said Glenn Campbell kind of lost control and was in danger of letting Spud the Smurf run amok (like Micro the pig, remember) but Dad says it’s because Glenn Campbell was feart o’ him. (Spud, not my dad, he doesn’t even know my dad – neither of them do.) So no one else got much of a look in – but then actually Spud just made himself look even stupider with all his shouting. I’d certainly say he lost his cool, but then he’s not half as cool as he thinks he is. In fact, he’s not cool at all, and he doesn’t even talk a good game. Some people may like him, but we don’t. You know why and it’s to do with Uncle Tam.
All in all, though, if anyone asks about the mandate for another Referendum between now and Thursday I MIGHT STICK THE HEID ON THEM and without any more warning than I’ve given you just here, because I don’t know how many times Nicola Sturgeon has to say this isn’t what the Election is about, and everyone else keeps going on about it. Change the record, folks. I am fully expecting Spud Smurf to start asking which currency we’re going to use because mum says its exactly the same ploy – wasting time talking about nonsense rather than dealing with the issues in hand. And if you want my conclusion about all the Leaders’ Debates then that’s the one I leave you with. It’s largely been a waste of time. Like dad said, it was ‘car crash’ TV all manipulated by the media with one eye on the ratings.
I’ve written loads about the ones I’ve seen but there’s been plenty more I haven’t seen – and some that I haven’t even written about. Remember at the beginning I told you that it’s been wall-to-wall on at the care home, so even if you are like Nanny Alzheimer, there’s no way you’ll have been able to miss them and no excuse not to have made your mind up how you’re going to vote. Though I wonder if they would actually help you make up your mind if it wasn’t made up?
Even Mr Marker is saying it’s a pretty stupid way to try and raise the level of political awareness among the population. And I’m not one to make big political statements and a week is a long time in politics and we can’t know what will happen even on Friday of this week but we do know that the SNP wants to have Scotland’s voice heard strongly in the Wastemonster. We didn’t want to be there, we don’t want to be there, but as long as we ARE there, we need people who will stand up for us and make sure they don’t rob us blind. As Uncle Tam would have said, ‘Barnett formula, my arse.’
Mum said it will all be worth it to see the smile wiped off Smug Spud Smurf’s face when (if) he loses and Labour is wiped out (that’s what she’s been working for) as traitors to the working people. ‘It’s what Uncle Tam would have wanted,’ she said to me.
‘It’s what we all want mum,’ I said.
John pointed out that if Spud doesn’t get into the Wastemonster he’ll be chibbin’ the door at Holyrood soon enough and Dad said we don’t need to worry because the way Smurfy’s talking about food banks and zero hours contracts and all his hogwash, he’ll be sainted before Sunday!
That was so funny dad even told it to Nanny Alzheimer on the phone last night and she laughed too. And then she told all the people in DrumTumshie care home not to vote for Spud because ‘he’s too good for God’.
So you can see, somehow, amongst all this, we’ve not lost our sense of humour, though as Dad says, it’s been sorely tried these past few weeks.
As for me, I just hope Mhairi Black gets in. Of course I want The Doctor (because she’s our prospective MP) and of course I want Alex Salmond (even if it means we lose him as our MSP) and even I know that Nicola Sturgeon isn’t even standing, but my biggest support now is for Mhairi Black.
I really like her. I haven’t told anyone yet – well, I’ve told you now. But I haven’t told anyone ‘real’. I certainly haven’t told her. How could I? But I do have a confession to make and I hope you won’t think the worse of me for it. I don’t have a smart phone so I’ve never really got into tweeting. You may be laughing at me now, or thinking I’m a child in poverty, but it’s because in Tattybogle the reception for phones is rubbish and why do I need to tweet when everyone I want is close enough to shout to – or just a bike ride away.
Dad has a mobile phone for when he’s in the fields and John and Heather have phones which they text each other all the time because they’re going out, and Mum got a smartphone for ‘the campaign’ and she says she might pass it on to me after the election, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve got this old Nokia phone for emergencies but I haven’t had an emergency in… oh, so long I can’t remember… and all in all I prefer ‘real life’ to social media. You know I’ve got a Facebook Page of course, and so does Mhairi Black. But she’s got 3000 likes and I’ve only got 77, which is odd when you think that I’ve been famous (as the Bard of DrumTumshie) for three years and she hasn’t been famous hardly at all. But I suppose that’s the media for you. Once they get hold of you they can do what they like, so I’m glad that I’m protected by Mr McStoryteller and not trending on Twitter every day. I’ve enough to do with my homework and reading up on potatoes – I don’t need to be famous on social media.
Don’t forget to Vote on Thursday. (Unless you’re not planning to vote SNP, in which case I don’t care if you forget.) Whatever happens I’ll be back next Wednesday and I’ll have some big news for you. You think you know what it is, don’t you? But no one can predict the future. Not even Jeremy Clarkson… on which bombshell… see you next week.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Remember, remember...
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Remember Nanny Alzheimer? Of course you do. She’s the one with the wonky memory of course, not you. But in case you don’t remember her I’ll remind you that she’s my Dad’s mum and that she lives in a care home just outside of Tattybogle. She’s been there for the past ten years more or less, though she comes from near Dumfries. And is always telling us she wants to go back there. Except when she forgets, and thinks that she is there.
And what’s that got to do with the price of fish? As she would say in the days before she was Nanny Alzheimer (which I can just about remember because I was quite young). Well it’s got a lot to do with the General Election, as it turns out.
Because you know, every vote counts. Even Nanny Alzheimer’s. You know how I’ve been having to watch all the political debates on the TV? Well, I’m not the only one. One thing about the care home Nanny Alzheimer lives in is that they have the TV on all the time. And if they aren’t in the TV lounge there’s the radio blaring out all the time too. There’s never a moment’s peace, in there Mum says.
I asked why they did it. Mum said it was to make them feel like they have company but Dad said it was because they thought they were all so doo-lally that it didn’t matter as long as there’s noise drowning out their ravings… but, he said, this has come back to bite them.
Because we got a phone call from Nanny Alzheimer. And then another one. And another. All hours of day and night she’s been ringing up since the last TV leaders debate asking my Dad not to forget to take her to the polling station. Which of course he will do, because Nanny Alzheimer is (apparently) entitled to her vote the same as the rest of us.
She was getting very distressed though (I don’t blame her, this election has been driving us all round the bend, hasn’t it?) and so Dad and Mum decided to go and find out what was going on.
The first thing was that Nanny Alzheimer was disgusted. She said so. She said
‘I saw Mr Ed shoot Jim in the foot.’
Of course they all thought she was just hallucinating cause people with dementia do that sometimes. But on further investigation (which is what you should always do when speaking to someone with dementia – but not in a nasty way, in a kind and listening way) it turned out that it was when Ed Miliband said that he wouldn’t work with the SNP whatever, which basically means he’d rather stay in opposition (on full salary) with David Cameron in power than try to build a better UK according to the will of ALL the people. Nanny Alzheimer didn’t like that.
So Dad promised her that he’d be sure to remember to take her to the polling station and we went home. And then we got another phone call from the care home. It was Nanny Alzheimer again asking my dad to remember… yes, you’d guessed it.
She was most insistent that we ‘hold their feet to the fire’. And dad said, ‘Well I bet Jim Murphy’s feet are burning now’ and Nanny laughed.
And then they hatched a plan.
Nanny Alzheimer is so determined that we’ll get SNP’s into the General Election (even if she’s forgotten that she’s not in Dumfries near the border but up by DrumTumhsie and miles away from it) that she set up this plot with my dad to get ALL the people in the care home to go and vote at Tattybogle Primary on May 7th.
And the plan is this. My mum and the activists have banded together to hire Brian the Brain’s dad’s coach to take all the people in the care home to vote. I can’t help but thinking this might turn out even worse than Micro the Pig (who is NOT going to be going along to vote with the MacRoarys this time). And Dad pointed out to Nanny Alzheimer that she couldn’t MAKE all the others vote SNP because Nanny Alzheimer thinks that if SNP’s take them to the polls the people won’t feel right about voting for anyone else. At least that’s what Dad thought she thought.
But of course you can’t ever really know what other people are thinking and when he said this she looked at him like he was about six and said, ‘I know that, Willie, but once we’ve all seen the Scottish Leaders Debate everyone will want to vote for that nice Nicola Sturgeon.’
And Dad had had enough of the phone calls, so he agreed and left it at that. But I have some experience of serials now and I know enough to know that that particular story isn’t over. So watch this space.
I was just glad that on Sunday it would be the last of the TV debates. And that within a week my mum would be back home making us chips and washing our socks and doing all the things that she’s not been able to do for the last month or so. I’ve run out of matching socks because I forgot the colour rule and, to be honest, anarchy has prevailed in the MacRoary underwear department. I think John might even have been wearing a pair of my pants the other day when he went out with Heather because he didn’t have any clean ones of his own. Mine are a bit small for him, so I hope he suffered! I don’t know which pair it is so I can’t quarantine them or feed them to Micro the Pig which is surely all they are good for once John’s had them on.
And then of course Sunday came and went. The debate came and went. It was in Scotland and Glenn Campbell chaired it. He told them all at the beginning that people were fed up with them all shouting over each other (which we were) and asked them to promise not to do that. I didn’t really hear them reply – Mr Marker would have been shouting ‘Can’t hear you’ to them. But as Mrs Lovall would say, his words ‘fell on stony ground’. Because it wasn’t long before it turned all shouty. Actually, apart from it being all about the same boring old stuff, it got quite exciting because at one point I thought Ruth Davidson and Jim Murphy were going to have a square go. (In case anyone doesn’t know what that means, it means they looked like they were going to have a fight.) They both accused each other of lying and it got very heated.
I’m only mentioning that because it was much more of a ‘real’ fight than the stupid nonsense that’s been going on about Mhairi Black (she’s not the Mhairi in my class by the way). She’s only 20 and she’s standing against Douglas Alexander and it’s getting everyone really upset. The thing is last year at the Conference after the Referendum, Mhairi said that she’d found it hard not to ‘put the head’ on some smug Labour people – and we know exactly how she feels here in Tattybogle. I remember her talking at the conference and I thought she was amazing for someone who was only that young. Don’t get me wrong, I like Heather, John’s girlfriend, but Mhairi Black is a hundred times better than Heather.
Anyway, what she said has been blown out of all proportion, probably because English people don’t understand our ‘colourful figurative language’ (my mum said). So I’m giving you an example. To say ‘I’ll put the head on you’ isn’t really a death threat of Charlie Hebdo proportions, it’s more just using figurative speech to explain how one feels – which was GUTTED. There’s even a poem we did in school which has that phrase in it, and it’s something folk just say. If someone said that to me in DrumTumshie I’d probably say ‘Aye, you n’ whose army?’ or something and you know there’s been a lot of bullying over the years in DrumTumshie Academy and I don’t think anyone would report ‘I’ll put the head on you’ as bullying or threatening or anything. When someone says that it doesn’t mean they are going to headbutt them for real. Someone should tell the Daily Torygraph that, dad said. And John pointed out that if someone was going to put the head on someone else they’d just do it, because the most important thing in such a situation was the element of surprise and so saying you’re going to do it makes it obvious you aren’t. And we all agreed that if there was to be any violence done in this election, it was much more likely to come on Sunday night between Ruth and Jim during the leaders debate.
I was just glad it was the last one (and I bet everyone else was glad too!). Nicola Sturgeon didn’t do shouty but she stood up for herself. She had to be quiet a lot of the time because mum said Glenn Campbell kind of lost control and was in danger of letting Spud the Smurf run amok (like Micro the pig, remember) but Dad says it’s because Glenn Campbell was feart o’ him. (Spud, not my dad, he doesn’t even know my dad – neither of them do.) So no one else got much of a look in – but then actually Spud just made himself look even stupider with all his shouting. I’d certainly say he lost his cool, but then he’s not half as cool as he thinks he is. In fact, he’s not cool at all, and he doesn’t even talk a good game. Some people may like him, but we don’t. You know why and it’s to do with Uncle Tam.
All in all, though, if anyone asks about the mandate for another Referendum between now and Thursday I MIGHT STICK THE HEID ON THEM and without any more warning than I’ve given you just here, because I don’t know how many times Nicola Sturgeon has to say this isn’t what the Election is about, and everyone else keeps going on about it. Change the record, folks. I am fully expecting Spud Smurf to start asking which currency we’re going to use because mum says its exactly the same ploy – wasting time talking about nonsense rather than dealing with the issues in hand. And if you want my conclusion about all the Leaders’ Debates then that’s the one I leave you with. It’s largely been a waste of time. Like dad said, it was ‘car crash’ TV all manipulated by the media with one eye on the ratings.
I’ve written loads about the ones I’ve seen but there’s been plenty more I haven’t seen – and some that I haven’t even written about. Remember at the beginning I told you that it’s been wall-to-wall on at the care home, so even if you are like Nanny Alzheimer, there’s no way you’ll have been able to miss them and no excuse not to have made your mind up how you’re going to vote. Though I wonder if they would actually help you make up your mind if it wasn’t made up?
Even Mr Marker is saying it’s a pretty stupid way to try and raise the level of political awareness among the population. And I’m not one to make big political statements and a week is a long time in politics and we can’t know what will happen even on Friday of this week but we do know that the SNP wants to have Scotland’s voice heard strongly in the Wastemonster. We didn’t want to be there, we don’t want to be there, but as long as we ARE there, we need people who will stand up for us and make sure they don’t rob us blind. As Uncle Tam would have said, ‘Barnett formula, my arse.’
Mum said it will all be worth it to see the smile wiped off Smug Spud Smurf’s face when (if) he loses and Labour is wiped out (that’s what she’s been working for) as traitors to the working people. ‘It’s what Uncle Tam would have wanted,’ she said to me.
‘It’s what we all want mum,’ I said.
John pointed out that if Spud doesn’t get into the Wastemonster he’ll be chibbin’ the door at Holyrood soon enough and Dad said we don’t need to worry because the way Smurfy’s talking about food banks and zero hours contracts and all his hogwash, he’ll be sainted before Sunday!
That was so funny dad even told it to Nanny Alzheimer on the phone last night and she laughed too. And then she told all the people in DrumTumshie care home not to vote for Spud because ‘he’s too good for God’.
So you can see, somehow, amongst all this, we’ve not lost our sense of humour, though as Dad says, it’s been sorely tried these past few weeks.
As for me, I just hope Mhairi Black gets in. Of course I want The Doctor (because she’s our prospective MP) and of course I want Alex Salmond (even if it means we lose him as our MSP) and even I know that Nicola Sturgeon isn’t even standing, but my biggest support now is for Mhairi Black.
I really like her. I haven’t told anyone yet – well, I’ve told you now. But I haven’t told anyone ‘real’. I certainly haven’t told her. How could I? But I do have a confession to make and I hope you won’t think the worse of me for it. I don’t have a smart phone so I’ve never really got into tweeting. You may be laughing at me now, or thinking I’m a child in poverty, but it’s because in Tattybogle the reception for phones is rubbish and why do I need to tweet when everyone I want is close enough to shout to – or just a bike ride away.
Dad has a mobile phone for when he’s in the fields and John and Heather have phones which they text each other all the time because they’re going out, and Mum got a smartphone for ‘the campaign’ and she says she might pass it on to me after the election, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ve got this old Nokia phone for emergencies but I haven’t had an emergency in… oh, so long I can’t remember… and all in all I prefer ‘real life’ to social media. You know I’ve got a Facebook Page of course, and so does Mhairi Black. But she’s got 3000 likes and I’ve only got 77, which is odd when you think that I’ve been famous (as the Bard of DrumTumshie) for three years and she hasn’t been famous hardly at all. But I suppose that’s the media for you. Once they get hold of you they can do what they like, so I’m glad that I’m protected by Mr McStoryteller and not trending on Twitter every day. I’ve enough to do with my homework and reading up on potatoes – I don’t need to be famous on social media.
Don’t forget to Vote on Thursday. (Unless you’re not planning to vote SNP, in which case I don’t care if you forget.) Whatever happens I’ll be back next Wednesday and I’ll have some big news for you. You think you know what it is, don’t you? But no one can predict the future. Not even Jeremy Clarkson… on which bombshell… see you next week.
About the Author
Jack MacRoary, also known locally as the Bard of DrumTumshie, comes from the small farming community of Tattybogle, which he has singlehandedly put ‘on the map’ through his fame. After bursting onto the literary cultural scene in August 2012 when he appeared at the inaugural Edinburgh eBook Festival, Jack now attends DrumTumshie Academy. His current ebooks are Tales from Tattybogle (available from Amazon here and Kobo here) and More Tales from Tattybogle (available from Amazon here and Kobo here). He is also the first McStorytellers McSerial writer.
Jack lives on a farm with his dad, mum, older brother John and a range of animals and pets, including Dug (the cat), Bisum (the dog) and Micro (the pig). His ebooks give an insight into rural life, as well as providing an insightful commentary on Scots culture.
Follow Jack on Facebook here.
Jack lives on a farm with his dad, mum, older brother John and a range of animals and pets, including Dug (the cat), Bisum (the dog) and Micro (the pig). His ebooks give an insight into rural life, as well as providing an insightful commentary on Scots culture.
Follow Jack on Facebook here.