Scott the Plank

Scott the Plank

Why did so many people hate Scott the Plank the moment they set eyes on him? Simple – it saved time.

There is a very small list of people to whom even Mother Teresa of Calcutta would have sent a parcel of her own poo, and Scott the Plank would have been number one on that list. I am pretty certain, that the dearly beloved Angel of Calcutta would have given him a damn good kicking.

I first met him as a fresh-faced trainee at the Ministry of Cow Counting, and laying eyes on his pink Top Man cardigan, one word immediately entered my head: “cunt”.

And, fabulously, my first impression was one hundred per cent correct. A Colin Hunt of the first order, who everybody loathed with equal measure. It’s great when one person unites and entire office, isn’t it?

He could – and often did – argue with anyone, and it was a miracle that no-one ever beat the crap out of him in the office. Not least Dr Ian Paisley MP, who made regular appearances in our offices to ensure that the special wheelbarrows of cow money were on their way to his constituents in South Down. And Scott the Plank would argue with him about how many sugars he wanted in his tea. And sodomy.

Scott the Plank was lucky to be alive.

But hey! This story’s got a happy ending! Happy for us, bad news if you happen to be Plank Features.

Scott wanted a couple of weeks off to go to a Christian music festival in a field somewhere in the Midlands*. This revelation came as no surprise to the rest of us, because he was exactly the kind of obnoxious, judgmental twat the happy-clappy branch of organised religion seems to throw up. Strangely, they all thought he was a first-order cunt, too. Unfortunately for Scott the Plank, however, he had already used up all but three days of his leave allowance and it was only May.

“That’s OK,” he said, “I’ll just go for three days and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Fuck off then, there’s a chap.”

Thursday morning. The phone rang.

“Hello?” said a heavily disguised voice at the other end of the line, “Scott’s broken his leg and he’s in hospital in Nottingham. Sorry.”

Sorry for what? Scott was away from us for the foreseeable future. This was good news. And to celebrate, we got a 29p card from Reading Market and sent it on to him, care of Nottingham City Hospital. I think I may even have written “Don’t hurry back” by way of a greeting.

The boss even relented on the leave thing, and granted him two weeks’ worth of sick leave on the proviso he came back with a certificate from a named member of the medical profession.

No matter. A week passed, and Scott the Plank was back with us, hobbling along on crutches, his leg in a cast.

“What card?” he asked. Also: “Certificate? I …err… lost it. The dog ate it.”

On Tuesday, the cast was gone, replaced with a light bandage.

On Wednesday, he was already forgetting to limp.

At exactly 4.31pm on Thursday, he was seen running for a bus in Broad Street, his pink Top Man cardigan flapping in the wind behind him.

At exactly 9.01 the following morning, he was escorted from the building (“Mind my leg, it’s broken” – “Is it fuck”), his Garfield “I think I’m allergic to Mondays” mug consigned, literally, to the dustbin of history.

I never saw the irritating bastard again, and for that small mercy we held a leaving do in his honour.

* Proof indeed that the devil has all the best tunes. Even a Phil Collins duet with Lionel Ritchie about poor homeless blind children would be better than Christian Rock.