MacPetty- the Scottish Play. A Forumshire Tragedy.

Mrs Figg wrote:I guess its hard for men to understand the shit we have to put up with. In Italy its glaringly obvious, all, (and I do mean all), women still fertile are expected to truss themselves up like prize turkeys for the viewing pleasure of men. All women are expected to wear makeup, heels and look good. Only after the menopause are women allowed to wear black and become fat. There is a demarcation line set in stone. Its like there are two tribes of women, before and after, its weird. In England the boundaries are more fluid and free, theres more rebellion against old stereotypes, 60 year olds in jeans that kind of thing, but here in Italy its medieval and it sucks. When the time comes the fuck I am wearing black.

You're not a prize turkey to me, Mrs Figg - but you are a Prize made Flesh!  

This Prospero sounds by turn evil and then hypocritically good. I know you mean well, Petty, but don't you think casting me in the role is a bit unauthentic?

Mrs Figg wrote:I guess its hard for men to understand the shit we have to put up with. In Italy its glaringly obvious, all, (and I do mean all), women still fertile are expected to truss themselves up like prize turkeys for the viewing pleasure of men. All women are expected to wear makeup, heels and look good. Only after the menopause are women allowed to wear black and become fat. There is a demarcation line set in stone. Its like there are two tribes of women, before and after, its weird. In England the boundaries are more fluid and free, theres more rebellion against old stereotypes, 60 year olds in jeans that kind of thing, but here in Italy its medieval and it sucks. When the time comes the fuck I am wearing black.

Didn't realize how bad it was there, but you are in a small town. Is it better in the cities?

Here women work hard to look cute until they marry ... at which point they cut their hair. Not because society expects it, but because they caught the bum so there's not reason they have to deal with long hair anymore.

talking of dreaming. I need an experimental biologist. wearing a magnet stops dreams. I have been wearing one for a couple of years

Spoiler:

anyway I stopped wearing it and I started dreaming, it was like a torrent of existential freakery with disaster movie thrown in for good measure. the magnet waves blocked the flow.

Mrs Figg wrote:talking of dreaming. I need an experimental biologist. wearing a magnet stops dreams. I have been wearing one for a couple of years

Spoiler:

anyway I stopped wearing it and I started dreaming, it was like a torrent of existential freakery with disaster movie thrown in for good measure. the magnet waves blocked the flow.

I so much want to open that spoiler - but I fear it may decode the Feminine Mystique - and I fear to go there!

I think things are slowly changing Halfy, but its still very traditional. When I left for England there was a rumour around our hamlet I had left Mr Figg and he would soon get a replacement, because they couldnt believe a woman would leave her husband to go study. It was Beyond their understanding that a woman would leave and not be there to minister and cook/clean whatever.

And you don't even have Chinese carry-out there!  Surely he'd starve away without a woman.

His mom didn't move in, did she?

When did my perfectly serious meditation on buckie and crabbit get norced?!   Who was it?! Come on, own up!  

I'm not ratting anyone out...

  I Norced

I might have known!  

Mrs Figg wrote:  I Norced

And a textbook example too.  

Near the foot of the stairs that lead down from the battlements there was a dark doorway, and through it a further set of winding stairs that led down to a room that once upon a time had been used to breed haggis in.

Lady Figg was waiting there.

She fetched a large bronze flagon from a shelf  and took it over to a large stone bowl that stood upon a pedestal and was full of buckie.

She took the flagon and dipped it in the bowl and then drank from it.

“The buckie that has made them drunk as made me bold!” she declared and drank again, “What has quenched them has given me fire, and mild hallucinations.”

There was a cry from the stairs above and she started and looked that way, but it was only Ginger Meg slinking down the steps with a young haggis hanging limply in her mouth.

“He is about it too,” Figg said smiling at the cat, which eyeballed her back.

Suddenly she heard Petty's voice from the top of the stairs, “Who's there?” and then then he said something which sounded like, “whoobuggerrrrrrrr!” and there was a series of painful thudding noises as he drunkenly fell into view clattering down the stairs.

He came to a stop with a bump on the flagstones at the bottom in a flurry of kilt and flashes of bollock.

Figg stared at him in annoyance, “I am afraid they have awakened and it is not done. The attempt and not the deed defeats us,” she thought in distress, “I gave him the bottle to use, I got the attendants drunk and wrangled them, he couldn't have screwed this up! Had Eldo not been wearing those cute Star Wars pyjamas I'd have done it myself.”

Petty staggered to his feet, “I have done the deed,” he said and she saw his face was pale, he looked worryingly sober, “Did you not hear a noise?” he demanded.

“I heard the haggis cry and the cat howl. Did you not say something?”

“When?”

“Now.”

“What as I fell down the stairs?”

“Yes, well just before,” Figg answered continuing to look worriedly at him, he was staring dully at the floor.

“Who sleeps in the chamber below Eldo in the tower?”

“Lance,” Figg told him.

“There was one did laugh in his sleep,” Petty explained but with a distant look in his eye, “ one cried, 'Murder!' So they woke each other. I stood and watched them, but they had a drink of buckie and went right back to sleep.”

“Yes, there are two lodged together,” Figg said not seeing the relevance of any of this when they should be celebrating.

“One cried, 'Cheers!' and 'Slainte!' the other,” Petty went on, his face twisting in a mask of agony, “Listening to their fear, I could not say 'cheers' when they did say it.”

“Don't think about it so much,” Figg consoled with a shake of her head and a worried look in her bright eyes.

“But why could I not say 'cheers!'” Petty demanded fiercely “I had most need of buckie, but the drink stuck in my throat.”

Figg grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, “You must not think of these things so much, you will make yourself sober.”

But Petty pulled away from her crying, “I heard a voice cry “Drink no more! Petty murders drink, the innocent drink, drink that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, the death of each days life, sore labours bath, balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, chief nourisher in life's feast,” he rambled.

Figg grabbed him again and spun him round to face her, “What do you mean?”

“Still it cried, “Petty said hauntingly, “'Drink no more!' to all the house; Buckie has murdered drink, and therefore Needlehole shall drink no more,” and his voice sunk to a hoarse low whisper of dread, “Petty shall drink no more.”

“Who was it said it?” Figg demanded unbelieving, “my worthy Petty you do disgrace your drunken nature to think so soberly on things. Go get some buckie,” she suggested and reached down to take his hands and noticed that the cracked but still intact buckie bottle still hung at his side, it had blood all over it and on the blunt end bits of what once had been were Eldo stored his Lore, “why did you bring the bottle from the place?” she demanded in shocked anger, “it must lie there, go take it, and smear the attendants with blood.”

Petty stared at her then said coldly, “I'll go no more, I am not nearly drunk enough to think about what I have done, look on it again this sober, I dare not.”

“You are a pathetic drunk,” she sneered at him and snatched at the bottle, “I will go, and if he still bleeds I will coat the faces of the attendants with it, for it must seem their guilt.”

And she swept by him and went up the stairs.

Petty stood and stared at nothing for several minutes and then went over to the basin filled with buckie and taking up a flagon dipped it into it.

But just as he was about to drink he started, he thought he had heard a distant muffled knocking.

He stared at his drink, “how is it with me when every noise appals me?” he took a long drink of buckie, then stared again at the flagon then drained it dry.

A worried look crossed his face and he dipped the flagon back in the buckie filling it again to the brim and then downed that too.

In a fury he throw the empty flagon to the floor, “Will all the buckie in the world not get me drunk again?” he cried, “No, rather this, my sobriety will turn all the buckie to water, making the potent one impotent.”

Figg came back down the stairs, “My state of drunkenness is like yours now,” she snatched up the flagon from the floor, dipped it in the basin and drank it down in several gulps, “but I shame to wear a heart so sober.”

The distant knocking came again, this time more insistent.

“I hear a knocking,” Figg observed, “At the gate, we should go to bed, a little buckie clears us of our conscience, how easy it is!”

The knocking came again, louder and even more insistent than before.

“Come on,” Figg said urgently and pulled at Petty dragging him away, “we might be called upon and we don't want anyone to know we have been up,” she hauled at Petty who still seemed distracted and not his usual drunken self at all, “Be not so sober looking in your thoughts,” she hissed.

“Wake Eldo with your knocking and ask him for his Lore!” Petty lamented, “I wish you could.”

But Figg dragged him away up the stairs.

i just red the hole thing petti ths was rely gd do u think i cud use it 4 my drama gcse

i can see me and u will b gud m8s here

maybe?

"do u think i cud use it 4 my drama gcse" - Gray

I can't say as I would recommend it.

I wouldn't befriend this fellow too swiftly, dear Petty. He seems a strange gangrel sort --- possibly Scotshobbittish, that seems possible, yes, but not a respectable Scosthobbit, not by the usual Scotshobbit standards.

The main gates of Buckie Castle quivered slightly under a continuous series of blows from the other side and the knocking rang hollowly around the courtyard.

Eventually, from among a heap of snoring drunken carousers a figure stumbled, padding about his body in search for something.

The knocking came again at the gate- boom-boom-boom- and thudded painfully through the man's head. He was the Porter of Buckie Castle.

“If a man were porter of the Dark Planet gate he would have it no worse,” the Porter cursed to himself and realising he did not have whatever he was searching for about his person, he turned to the piles of sleeping jumbled, passed out bodies and began shoving his hands in amongst them.

-Boom-Boom-Boom-

“Knock! Fucking knock!” the Porter called again, still scrabbling among the incapacitated, “Whose there in the name of Morgoth? Why its farmer Dave, who hanged himself on the promise of a suspiciously shaped harvest: come in, have a dildo shaped turnip, but you'll sweat for it,” he heaved one of the bodies aside.

-Boom-Boom-Boom-

“Knock, shitting knock!” he cried again, “Who's there, in the name of the other devil, what was it again? Oh yeah Sauron. Why here's a couple of Ambassadors, Amarie and Leelee, that could ply diplomacy but who committed treason enough for Eu's sake, yet could not diplomat their way to Valinor: O, come in Ambassadors,” he went on still rooting about among the bodies from which came a series of noises from all parts.

-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-

“Knock arsing knock! Who is there? Faith here is Orwell, caught stealing French ladies undergarments, come in, come in, here you may roast your goose!” he thrust a hand between a fat man and a snoring dwarf and then cried “Aha!” and pulled his hand back out sharply, bringing with it a bunch of keys.

-BOOM!-BOOM!-BOOM!-

“Knock, knock; never quiet,” he muttered shaking his head, “But this place is too cold for Morgoth. I'll devil-porter it no more,” and he shuffled a weaving path towards the gates and unlocked them.

As the gate swung back a clearly annoyed Orwell strode in, with Forest by his side.

“Was is so late, friend, that you went to bed that you sleep so long?” Orwell demanded.

“We were bevving till the early hours; and the buckie, sir, is a great provoker of three things.”

Despite himself Orwell found he was intrigued, “What three things?” he asked.


“Well sir, violence, hallucinations, and piss,” he said listing them off on his fingers, “Sex, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes. The buckie makes you fair horny, but takes away the performance, or any chance of one for that matter,” he bent his arm at the elbow and thrust it towards Orwell's face the fist clenched, “It makes him stand to,” he said, and then let his arm fall away, “and not stand to: in conclusion, sir, it sets him into a sleep, and having given him the lie, leaves him.”

Orwell frowned at him, “I think the buckie gave you the lie last night.”

“That it did sir,” the porter admitted, “in the very throat of me, but I was too strong for him, though he took my legs up at some point, but I cast him off,” he finished with a flourish of his hand and gestured downwards to his groin where it was clear he had recently wet himself in his sleep.

“So I see,” Orwell said wrinkling his nose and holding a handkerchief to it, “Is your master stirring?”

But Forest tapped Orwell on the shoulder and nodded to where Petty had emerged at the far side of the courtyard pulling on his tartan and yawning visibly, “Our knocking has awoken him,” Forest said, “Good morning,” he added as Petty reached them.

“Morning,” Petty replied with another yawn.

“Is the Admin awake yet?” Orwell enquired.

Petty paused a fraction of a second , “Not yet,” he said with a smile.

“He did command me to call on him,” Orwell informed, “and we almost slipped the hour.”

Petty nodded and smiled again, “Then I will bring you to him,” he said and lead them up the stairs to the battlement and to the Tower.

Orwell went in through the tower door whilst Petty and Forest waited outside.

“It was a shit night where we were,” Forest said by way of small talk whilst they waited, “our buckie was blown over, and there were strange sweary lamentations on the air, screams in the foulest Fjordian language. The haggis clamoured the night long and some even say the earth was feverous and shook.”

Petty, who was as tense inside as Odo watching a scantily clad lady near his jelly tub, barely heard him and noticed Forest was looking at him for a response, “Aye, was shit,” Petty agreed vaguely.

“I cant remember a worse night,” Forest said, “but then I wasn’t here for last years Forum Awards.”

Just then the door at the foot of the tower flew open and Orwell came staggering melodramatically out of it, a hand cast to his forehead, “Horror, O horror, horror!” he wailed, making sure everyone was paying him their full attention.

Forest stared at him, “Why the dramatics Orwell?” he demanded.

“The life of the building is gone,” Orwell wailed.

“What?” Petty said sharply ad he hoped convincingly, “what do you mean, the life?”


Orwell pointed back in the dark doorway, “Go, see for yourself,” he cried, then noticing he did not have as big an audience as he would like for this he went down to the courtyard whilst Petty and Forest went into the tower.

“Awake! Awake!” Orwell yelled at the top of his voice, “Look at me! Ring the alarm bell!” he said thinking that would get him a good audience, “Murder! Treason!” he cried for extra effect, “shake off your buckie, death's counterfeit, and look on death itself” he wailed.

Somewhere a bell began to ring shrilly and a moment later Lady Figg appeared in her night robe and wrapped round with a thick robe of haggis hair, “What is this noise that disturbs the hangovers of my guests?” she demanded of Orwell as more people and servants began to flood the courtyard.

“O gentle lady!” Orwell said sidling up to her and wondering if this was an inappropriate time to make a move, “I cannot tell you fair Lady,” he explained, “it is not for a Lady's ear.”

“Yeah right,” Figg replied unimpressed.

Just then Odo entered the courtyard, his long face a mask of frowning concern and worry as well as its usual disapproval at all.

“Odo!” Orwell called upon seeing him, “Our Royal Master is murdered!”

“Oh so you can't tell me,” Lady Figg said, “but you can shout it out to someone else from right next to me, but murdered? In our house?”

“Too cruel anywhere,” Odo replied, “its put me right off my morning jelly.”


Petty and Forest reappeared, and Petty stopped halfway down the stairs to the courtyard, “Had I died of alcohol poisoning before this time I would have lived a blessed drunken life, from this instant there is nothing fun in bevvying, for the buckie of life is drawn and lies emptied within,” he said pointing back to the tower.

Just then Lance entered the courtyard, looking bleary eyed, “What is amiss?” he asked.

“You are,” Petty replied pointing at him, “and do not know it. The spring, the head of Forumshire and your main champion is stopped, its very source is stopped.”

Lance frowned at this, “What?” he said eventually.

“The Admin is murdered,” Orwell explained in plain terms.

“Oh. By who?” Lance demanded.

“Those of his chamber,” Forest put in, “their hands and faces were covered in blood, and a bloodied buckie bottle, his end cracked and gored, was lying with them.”

Petty took in a deep breath, this was going to be a tricky bit, “Yet I do repent me of my crabbit that I killed them.”

There was a silence at this and everyone stared at him, eventually Orwell said suspiciously, “Why did you do that?”

“Who can be buckied, crabbit, and neutral in a moment?” Petty demanded staring at their upturned suspicion filled faces, “No man can, the buckie outran the reason. There lay Eldo, his head caved in by bottle, his fine head of hair ruined and unfit for any hat, no matter how fancy, and there the murders steeped in the colour of their trade. Who could refrain that had a buckie in him, and with that buckie the courage to make his feelings known?”

Still everyone remained staring at him and he realised they weren't buying this excuse.

“Oh help!” Lady Figg suddenly cried out and fell over backwards, landed on her bustle, tottered to either side for a moment balanced upon it, and then finally keeled over on her side.

“Look to the Lady,” Orwell cried and hurried over to Lady Figg, “Maybe I should loosen her clothes,” he added hopefully.

Lance sidled over to Malick and whispered to him,”Why don't we say something, its pretty bloody obvious who has done this,” he said nodding subtly at Petty.

“I think we should go,” Malick responded not liking the look of this turn of events.

With Orwell's assistance Lady Figg was helped from the courtyard, “Let us hold a Council,” he announced.

“Oh,” Odo chipped up, “I like holding Councils.”

“Not that sort of council Odo,” Orwell admonished, “no jelly," Odo's cretfallen face fell even further, "We shall have a council to discuss what is to be done now.”

“Yes, good idea,” Petty said, keen to move on from the reasons why he just killed the only suspects, "let us meet in the hall, after a buckie or two naturally.”

Lance turned to Malick, “What will you do? I will to England, Essex most likely.”

“I to Ireland,” Malick replied, “I've always wanted to see a leprechaun and try some Guinness, besides here there are blunt buckie bottles in men's eyes.”

Quietly they slipped away as the remainder of folk made their way into the Castle.

Overhead the ravens circled and croaked.

I was going to put the next part of this up before I retreat to my barrel/Daves fields (whichever I fall into first), but, um....hello? Anybody here?  

Bollocks! {{{       }}}}}}

“The Admin is murdered,” Orwell explained in plain terms.


You could have stopped there and made for a happy ending, laddie!  




{{{I'm here btw...  }}}

Just then Lance entered the courtyard, looking bleary eyed, “What is amiss?” he asked.

“You are,” Petty replied pointing at him, “and do not know it. The spring, the head of Forumshire and your main champion is stopped, its very source is stopped.”

Lance frowned at this, “What?” he said eventually.

Still everyone remained staring at him and he realised they weren't buying this excuse.

“Oh help!” Lady Figg suddenly cried out and fell over backwards, landed on her bustle, tottered to either side for a moment balanced upon it, and then finally keeled over on her side.

As ripe as always!  

Readers! I should complain more often, I'm obviously not being crabbit enough- the old carrot and the stick, except I dont have any carrots (maybe I should go see Dave about that, his carrots always attract the ladies  ), in the meantime I'll just go get a stick  

  tottering?

I would imagine (and indeed did!) that if one falls backwards onto an immense and splendid bustle, tottering would be about all you could.  

have you heard of Flying Buttresses?

Didnt have them in 11th Century Scotland, tricky to get the haggis to stay still long enough.