/ 7 April 2004

Fairyland elections on track

With election lies reaching fever pitch, I thought I’d take a stroll down to the bottom of my garden to see how the fairies were doing in their preparations for Wednesday. I’d noticed a lot of what looked like badly designed postage stamps, hanging on gladioli and delphinium stems, glued to the sides of the potting shed. On close examination these turned out to be the election posters of the tiny people.

What first surprised me was to see what was going on in the middle of my brinjal patch. A crowd of about 60 Flibbertigibbets were marching up and down the rows, waving banners and vast, misspelt slogans.

The sound of their singing wafted up to me. I saw a luminous green Hobgoblin who’d clambered on to a nearby brick and was aiming a video camera at the marchers. I bent down and plucked him up by his collar.

”What’s all this about?” I demanded, shaking him gently.

He wriggled a bit but said nothing. I shook him a little harder. ”I’m a journalist Hobgoblin,” he cried. ”I refuse to disclose my sources.”

Tossing him from hand to hand, I walked over to the fish-pond and dangled him above it. Two of my pet large-mouth bass started to circle near the surface. He immediately got the message.

”Alright, alright,” he gasped. ”The Flibbertigibbets are on a protest march. They claim the Brownies have been looting the Fairyland fiscus to bankroll their election campaign. Brownie leaders fly all over the place using air-force pigeons. They spend taxpayer’s money as if it belonged to them.”

”But the Brownies are the biggest party by far,” I said. ”Surely they have to reach the greatest amount of potential voters.”

”You sound just like a Brownie yourself,” he snapped. ”Next thing you’ll be saying the opposition Variegated Democratic Pixies are nothing but a bunch of craven political carpetbaggers who want to put us all back under the control of the Ogres who ran things before.”

”Is that what they mean when they say that Fairyland Deserves Better?”

”Absolutely,” he replied. ”But if you think they’re bad, just take a walk over there behind the compost heap and see what’s going on with the Impies. They used to be hand-in- foxglove with the Brownies. Closest of partners against the common foe of the Ogres. Today they are sworn enemies. Even the leader of the Brownies, Thabby the Traveller, won’t dare go near the Impies without heavily armed Bugaboos to protect him.

”I thought the Brownies had given the Impies lots of low-cost mushrooms to keep them happy,” I exclaimed. ”And an economy-size bottle of antiretroviral insect spray.”

”All the Brownies actually sent the Impies was a bank-bag of beetroot seeds and a get-well-soon card.”

”Let’s forget about the Brownies and the Impies and the Pixies,” I said, placing the Hobgoblin gently on the grass. ”I hear that some physically repellent creature wearing short trousers has moved into the undergrowth near the Brownies. I nearly got him with the weed-eater the other day, but he dodged out of the way.”

‘You’re talking about Thinus Troll,” said the Hobgoblin, shaking his head sadly. ”He’s a new mutation of trolls called Succubi. He has to wear short trousers and short-sleeved shirts because he’s got these big, sticky suction pads on his legs and arms, which attach themselves to anything that looks like it’s got political nutrition value. You don’t have to worry about Thinus. He’ll get about a half a percent of the vote and then die of invisibility. That’s if the slug-bait doesn’t get him first.”

I put the Hobgoblin on my shoulders and wandered past the plumbago hedge to the paw-paw tree. ”I’ve heard there’s some strange and vivid Fancy running a solo campaign up there,” I said.

”He represents a very thin slice of the sub-tropical votes. He’s a bit like those other two, Peter the Karaoke Dwarf and Pat the Sprite. They are one-fairy affairs who, on account of their high entertainment value, are permitted to campaign by the Independent Gnome Council.”

”Talking about entertainment value,” I said, ”what’s all this about some political throwbacks calling themselves the Foofie Front Plus? I hear they’re revolting.”

”You can say that again,” said the Hobgoblin. ”At least half of their voter base are up on horticultural treason charges. The other half are living in a dusty little hole in your rock-garden, eating prickly pears and shooting at any Brownies who come too close.”

We had got back to the cabbage patch and I saw that the Flibbertigibbet march had been dispersed. Small threads of tear gas floated on the air.

I put the Hobgoblin back on his brick. ”Thanks for all the info,” I said.

”You could have just waited for the seven o’clock Fairyland television news.” he grumbled.

”That’ll tell you all you need to know … about the Brownies, any-way. You’ll also get a few token glimpses of the other Fairyland General Election candidates. It’s called demonocracy.