An Edinburgh architect is championing an unusual underwater craze. It is called scuba gnoming,
and it involves miniature, bearded, ceramic men underwater.
Since it was revealed that having a single gnome in the garden could knock £500 off the price
of your home the notion of taking the little chaps travelling has gained popular appeal. It is
quite fashionable these days to take photos of them at popular tourist sites , placing a naff
object in front of Edinburgh Castle, for example, is seemingly less naff than placing yourself
there and having them looking highbrow outside the National Galleries gives them the sort of
cultural credibility they have been sorely lacking to date.
But now the trend has gone a step further - not content with earthly pleasures, gnomes are
taking to the water.
Edinburgh man Gordon Mackie is, arguably, the world's number one proponent of scuba-gnoming -
the practice of adding a little piece of German kitsch to the sea bed to brighten up the lives of
other divers.
Gordon claims to have planted no less than 200 gnomes in the world's waterways. But Gnome
Central has to be a sacred spot in Scotland's own Loch Fyne, where up to 50 of the little blighters
have formed a ceramic shrine, a sort of elfin Atlantis
Having fought their way out of the garden after centuries of confinement, these miniature
suffragents could see their popularity come full circle. Then again, maybe
not.
