Intro to Cast, Setting & Political Background

BASIC GUIDE TO MORAL DRIFT’S SETTING & CHARACTERS

The following is for reference only. Moral Drift features large numbers of characters who live in a relatively politically complex and media-dense world. This guide is provided on the request of another reader / author to help keep track of these characters.

The following may include spoilers

MORAL DRIFT’S WORLD:

Like ours but with lower seas and larger ice caps, as if their retreat has halted at the end of the last ice age at roughly the position they got to at 7,000 BC - then stuck there. Dogaland, in Moral Drift’s world, is an island - whereas the island of Britain is not.

COUNTRY: DOGALAND

DOGALANDERS are quasi-British people living on an island between what is now Britain and mainland Europe, on the lowlands of Dogger Bank, between the east coast of Northern England and Denmark.

CAPITAL CITY: GODMINSTER

DOGALAND’S NAMED REGIONS: DOGGER, FISHER, GERMAN BIGHT (AKA BIGHTLAND), HUMBER COAST

SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT:

Technically a democracy, in reality closer to an electoral dictatorship. Governments are elected via structurally biased elections - voters vote but not all people of voting age are allowed to vote. Specifically, all men, but a only a very small minority of women - those who have inherited property due to there being no alternative male heir available - are enfranchised.

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

A curving, brutalist slab of concrete sitting behind a broad tidal river.

Lower: House of Honourable Representatives - The Reps

Upper: The Upper Chamber - The Uppers or The Ups.

POLITICAL PARTIES:

1) DR - Democratic Reform - an anti-corruption, pro-votes-for-women, anti-male-gaze insurgent party. DR had scraped a majority together from themselves and members of a few other minor parties for slightly less than a single electoral term. DR, before Moral Drift (Book 1 in the developing series) starts, have just lost a vote of confidence in their government. No equivalent party exists in modern day Britain.

2) LC - the Liberal Conservatives. The ‘natural party of government’ of Dogaland, LC have been in power for most of living memory, with the recent DR government being the sole real break. LC, during the DR government, have taken up a pro-male-gaze stance. LC are a pastiche of Britain’s real world Tory Party.

SAFEGUARDING REVIEW COMMITTEE - also, popularly, The Moral Oversight Panel - a committee that was meant to be set up by Democratic Reform to monitor incoming records to the SPD (schoolgirl punishment database) in order to check them for excessive, morally questionable or abusive actions by teachers or other punishing persons - which never, in fact, got set up.

POLITICIANS: National

SARDO JOINARD, Home Secretary. Joinard is the man-on-the-spot for LC’s backbench CL51 Club, which is made up of LC members of parliament who are pro-suppression of the female vote and pro-male-gaze - and therefore represent men who wish the women in the country to be kept under the thumb of the patriarchy - while also being kept visually available to men in sexualised advertising, TV shows etc.

JENGER VICLES, New LC Government Prime Minister - not a product of CL51, Vickles is a more centre-ground politician who is uncomfortable with Sardo Joinard’s reforms, but politically weak enough to be unable to stop them.

OLIMAND DOSIMAN - lead figure in influential Liberal Conservative back-bench committee, The CL51 Club.

PILLARD ROOTES, DR Opposition Home and Education Shadow Secretary - Tobber Clanck calls him Pillard the Pillock.

LAWS OF DOGALAND:

Age of Consent - 16

Voting age for Universal Male Suffrage - 16

Women who are allowed to vote - property owning women 29 years old and older

DR’s still-surviving in-flagrante rules at the start of Moral Drift (book 1) - no nudity may be broadcast of girls under 16

DR’s in-flagrante rules - rescinded by LD - no nudity or sacriligious or profane language may be shown before the 10 PM watershed - rescinded by DR.

No public space nudity (includes posters, public moving-image advertising displays and other public space advertising) - rescinded by DR and reverted to self-policing by advertising industry body and local authorities.

THE SPD - THE SCHOOLGIRL PUNISHMENT DATABASE. This is being set up as the story progresses. Intended to be a record of all punishments recorded in girls schools up and down Dogaland, for review of the SAFEGUARDING REVIEW COMMITTEE.

DOGALAND’S NETWORK TELEVISION CHANNELS, RADIO CHANNELS AND NEWSPAPERS

FIRST! - original state broadcaster with a serious and popular mix. Hosts the main TV News at 6PM and Political Roundup with Jott Daltum at 6:30PM

POPULAR - deliberately low-brow channel which has tried to become more serious under the last DR Government, but now, under the new LC Government, is returning with a vengeance to its populist roots. The channel of The Billy Hall Show.

CHANNEL 3 - high-brow arts and documentaries channel

ALL TALK - national (commercial) radio talk show channel on which Tobber Clanck runs the morning Tobber Clanck Show (9Am to midday) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.

THE CURRANT - low brow tabloid newspaper featuring tits and bums in its centre pages - Tobber Clanck writes a weekly column on Wednesdays, which goes to press on Fridays.

THE KENNIGWORT CHRONICLE - local newspaper for Kennigwort District, where the Corkle family live.

PROGRAMME INTERVIEWERS, ANCHORS, EXECUTIVES & INTERVIEWEES:

JOTT DALTUM - FIRST!’s Political Roundup (6:30PM) anchor and interviewer - bow tied, steeples fingers, covertly hostile tone

RYKAL SHANKAR - FIRST!’s chief political correspondent, often appears with political interviewees outside the Houses of Parliament

SIMIN LANKLAND - Popular’s art shows thread anchor and interviewer - hosts Popular Arts (10PM Tuesdays) and Media Matters (9PM Sundays)

TOBBER CLANCK - shock jock on ALL TALK, a national radio network. Also posts a weekly column in The Currant, a low-brow tabloid newspaper, which he writes on Wednesdays, though it goes to press on Fridays

ROLLA FECKLE - Tobber’s bright behind-the-scenes researcher for The Tobber Clanck Show on ALL TALK

JEMMU MOLDUBNA- a female Tobber Clanck Show call screener

BRALLERD WEEKS - arts commentator on the highbrow arts and culture-heavy Channel 3. Prime Minister Vickles paraphrases his general position as, “Everything distasteful is wrong and must be stopped.”

QUADE ESMONT - Popular’s Chief Executive

CHENDAR ORBILL - Popular’s Commissioner of Light Entertainment

ALARD HELCKER - Billy Hall Show Producer (Popular)

MELLARICK EAFLOCK - presenter of Musings, an 11:30PM discussion show on Popular

INAWIL BILLIKINT - female presenter, 29, of The Shows You Like on Popular - approx airing slot 10:30PM. Over-enthuses, never criticises, incessantly cheerful - dyed red hair, garish yellow clothes, frequently shifts on her seat, re-adjusting short skirt to pull it downwards. Says things like, “You had me squirming,” when talking about sex scenes on TV.

On POPULAR ARTS - presenter SIMIN LANKLAND

Panelists ANNESTE LIZQUITH, an arts strand newspaper columnist

RILLER FINGEST, an LC-supporting film critic - tall, gaunt

TOBBER CLANCK, an outspoken phone-in radio host and shock jock

THEY REVIEW:

TORVIS BOOKER’S COLONIA, Playing at the Larramir Theatre - Booker is an up-and-coming theatre writer

TIMMART SCOLDT’S SOFTER FOCUS - Scoldt is a famous auteur.

THE BILLY HALL SHOW new season (see below)

THE BILLY HALL SHOW (‘comedy’ sketch show)

Once per week (Tuesdays, 7PM on Popular) - TV show featuring buxom girls chasing, and being chased by, BILLY HALL and his sidekick crew the Toothless Man, the Lank-Haired Man and others

BILLY HALL - star and comedian

THE TOOTHLESS MAN - Billy Hall sidekick

THE LANK-HAIRED MAN - Billy Hall sidekick

JENEELA CLOOPER - big breasted, tiny waisted, the most frequent butt of Billy Hall’s jokes

BIMBO PRESENTER girl wit C-cup breasts, squeaky voice

AMAZON GIRL - shelf-like bubble butt, breasts bigger than Clooper’s

RED-HEAD regular, short and curvy

ICE CREAM DAYS (soap opera)

Ice Cream Days, 3x per week half hour soap opera (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 7PM on Popular, with occasional extended Friday shows) set in fictional seaside town of MARCH MANDERLEY and featuring ST LORTARDS CHURCH and Church Hall (Roman Catholic-like) and MR DAYS’ ICE CREAM SHOP, which gives the show its title.

MARCH MANDERLEY - fictional seaside town backed by steep hills

MARCHER HILL - hill which NIETI YORKLE must ride up and down as one of her CHARITATHON challenges

PRODUCERS of Ice Cream Days - MARTON SCUTE and RUNIGER FOLLDAM

ACTORS / CHARACTERS:

LAOLA GREGEER - plays NIETI YORKLE, who takes on her Church’s Charitathon Challenge to help raise funds for its Clock and Steeple Fund

CHOAD PROOBER plays FATHER CLOAR, the Priest of ST LORTARD’S CHURCH

TONDER YORKLE - Nieti’s screen husband

CHITTER SPUGS - a grizzled old man with a very weedy garden

COLONEL RIGHTWHEEL - moustachioed male who is also supposed to have set Nieti Yorkle challenges

COUNCILLOR PRAMBLEBUSH - butch female voter and councillor who is also reported to have set Nieti Yorkle challenges

MR DAYS runs Days Ice Cream Shop in the middle of the town’s sea front, after which the show is named

ELSPERETTA (Days’ wife)

JEMMIE SKIDDLES - plays SHISHELLE MALOODY, a schoolgirl Yarra’s age

IRANA MALOODY - Shishelle’s mum

MR SPIGINS - Shishelle’s teacher - mid forties, salt and pepper hair

MR OLIGEM - his teacher’s assistant, 22, leers, snidey, smug

MR CHOLLUM - Headmaster

LAMONA CRICKLES - lead bad girl

NAILA SIMINKIN - 2nd bad girl

GEMMI DOGGER - 3rd bad girl

ESTREMA PIZAPON - 4th bad girl

MR HOWSING - tourist father

SEEMA TOGS - new victim girl, younger than Jemmie Skiddles

MORAL DRIFT’S SCHOOLS:

‘TRADITIONAL’ PRIVATE GIRLS SCHOOLS:

These are the notorious so-called TRADITIONAL girls schools, the punishment practices of which have partly inspired the creation of the SPD.

SCARLETON CHANGE TRADITIONAL UPPER GIRLS SCHOOL is in a remote inland part of Dogger Region. Sometimes awards their girls so-called HPs - short for Humiliation Punishments

LIXMOUTH TRADITIONAL SCHOOL FOR SENIOR GIRLS is in GERMAN BIGHT or BIGHTLAND region - sometimes awards their girls HUMBLERS - similar to Scarleton’s HP’s

KENNIGWORT UPPER GIRLS SCHOOL - Kennigwort Town’s centrally-located high school

DONDER ULLERADE - a progressive, pro-female-rights talented young teacher with 4-5 years experience who is finding the new political developments at the school very hard to stomach

STUDENT: YARRA CORKLE

MAIN SETTINGS:

KENNIGWORT is a coastal town which was once a thriving seaside resort but has been gradually declining for several decades.

YARRA’S BUS ROUTE - the K44

Begins FISHBURN (outer edge of town)

via CUDLEY MARSH ROAD (CUDLEY MARSH) off which the CORKLES live

and KENNIGWORT UPPER SCHOOLS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS (which are two separate schools)

and FOLDER STREET SHOPS (43-45 Folder Street = GATTREYS INVESTMENTS, where Pinno, Skidmark, Norgel, Moller and Gacka work)

and RIDDLERTOWN INDUSTRIAL QUARTER

terminating on SEAFRONT at the SOUTH PIER

The K44, then, runs from FISHBURN to SEAFRONT (SOUTH PIER)

MAIN CHARACTERS: THE FAMILY

YARRA CORKLE - Daughter, 16 at the time of Moral Drift (book 1), Yarra Corkle 5’1”, blonde, blue eyed, curvy like her mum, independent-minded, not a natural submissive

MOLCUM CORKLE - Father, 46 - works mostly from home on statistical analysis for a small, expanding Insurance Agency. Molcum helps set up new offices for his company in different parts of Dogaland, and so has to move every two years on average. When he’s not biusy doing this, he also runs computer simulations - sort of. Sometimes. Statistical ones, which he didn’t design, but does know how to use. Which towns would SHORT AND MADDERLEY find as most fertile ground for a new local branch? Which part of the town? Molcum is no mathematician, but he knows the glitchy software - proprietorial, cobbled-together by a company that’s now gone bust - well enough to keep it running and make it do what it’s supposed to do.

Chapter 1 »