Free The House of Writers by M.J. Nicholls Page B

blast out “Flower of Scotland” and other unfavourites while red-haired serving girls with rustic cheeks busy about offering wine and canapés to the lucky commissioned. The VIPs are simply let’s-get-down-to-businessmen, permitting themselves only several smiles before and after their address to the room. Paul Buggle CEO said:
    “It’s wonderful to be back in the former Scotland. Thank you for the warm welcome. All my favourite cultural archetypes are here. But we need to be careful not to oversell these commodities. Americans have no idea that Scotland today is owned by the Mudrake Corporation and is funded entirely from the profits of American business. They have no idea that shortbread, haggis, and Irn-Bru are all made in American factories. It’s crucial that the buyers of Scottish products believe these things originate in the Old Country. Remember, Scotland is nothing more than a wing of the American tourist industry and earns its right to retain its history by trading on now-mythical cultural stereotypes completely alien to the residents here, who live entirely on American food, television, and products. ScotCall is part of the Mudrake Corporation. It’s all about creating the illusion of some kind of choice, some kind of freedom, some kind of free will, so consumers don’t become stultified by the lack of any. All companies are owned by the Mudrake Corporation. In fact, there’s a joke that Scotland is run out of a tiny office of the NY marketing department! But it’s true. Scotland comprises such a small percentage of the market, its loss would be irrelevant, but its history is still relatively tradable. So it’s imperative that we keep these cultural archetypes going in books and other art forms. After all, we’re not in the business of wiping out a country’s history and culture—not when it is still so profitable. Adaptation is the word. It simply isn’t viable to let a country’s populace cling to its cultural stereotypes. We all know they were absorbed into the culture a long time ago, as the world became more homogenous, universalised, as the Mudrake Corporation created their global hypermarket. Can you imagine a 21 st century Scot would ever don a kilt unironically or eat haggis for his tea? These were anachronisms way back in the late 20 th century. Really, it’s corporations like ours that do a service to small countries like Scotland. If it wasn’t for us giving them the chance to trade, they would have forgotten their history and culture, and where would we all be then? Anyway, here’s to the success of the latest shortbread range. Thank you.”
    Sleeping arrangements? Nope! Pelf kindly let me bed down in the conference room, borrowing a sleeping bag from the caretaker, and helped me find leftover food from the higher departments. You need to rely on your wits on this floor. I asked Marilyn for extra work promoting The House in the community and she sent me off around the farmhouses in Crarsix to collect donations to help with essential repairs in the building (the lifts were mouldy with moss and fungi and some new form of furry-backed beetle was emerging from the cracks). I ambled along the gravel road past the stock-dump fields. The grass was hissing from molten electrical equipment, and the cries of starved digi-pets could be heard over the whirrs and moans of moribund electric mango skinners, lemon pulpers, banana strippers, orange pulpers, and apple mulchers. I reached the first hous,: a red-brick throwback erected beside the biggest stock-dump field in Crarsix, and knocked on the door, where and a tall man with ferrety eyebrows opened and said nothing. “I’m looking to—” “Say no more. I’m Sid. Come in!”
    His front room was busy with all sorts of sharp-toothed animatronic scrapyard inventions. Sid was a prolific scrap farmer who eked out a living turning dumped stock into implausibly useful household friends. He showed me a trifunctional breakfast-cum-entertainment