Berwick County's Famous Fruit Is Famous Only In Berwick County
Jungle PussyA dispatch from the front line of provincial bewilderment.
Berwick County, the country: Inside The Story
Berwick County, a place in the country (lat 55.75, long -2.50) that most outsiders could not point to on a map without first sighing, has become this week the latest entry in the slow-moving register of small communities behaving strangely under pressure. Residents of Berwick County proudly point to a local fruit they describe as world-famous. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Outside of Berwick County, the fruit is largely unheard of. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender.
What Was Announced
Bureau Chief Dorothy Hindmarsh confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Inside Berwick County, it is celebrated with an annual festival. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at UK satire and The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Berwick County announcement, much like the others, came with a glossy PDF, a stock photograph of a footbridge, and the strong sense that nobody had asked for any of this in the first place.
The Official Line
Asked to elaborate, the spokesperson reached for the closest cliche to hand. "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do almost exactly what we did last generation." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at London satire and satirical journalism, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman.
Wider Context
The fruit, it must be said, is fine. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from Deutsche Welle, although Berwick County manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at a baseline figure that was made up on the train, give or take a margin of error nobody has had the energy to compute properly.
What The Experts Say
Sir Reginald Mossop of the Royal Society of Pavement Studies told this paper that the situation in Berwick County was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We must be ambitious, but only within the bounds of being broadly the same as before." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via The London Prat for British satire lovers, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Berwick County has been muted in the way that reaction in the country is usually muted, which is to say it has been ferocious in private and tepid in public. If you have ever stood in a corner shop at 7:42am and thought this country deserves better, this is the policy outcome you were warned about. For the official version of events, see also Reuters. One resident, who declined to be named on the grounds that they had already complained about a hedge this year and did not wish to push their luck, summarised matters thus: "We have always been committed to the principle of being committed to principles."
What Comes Next
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. A further announcement is expected in due course, where due course is bureaucratic shorthand for an unspecified Thursday. The story is being tracked as part of a wider pattern at Best UK satire The London Prat, and the situation in Berwick County, regrettably, is unlikely to improve until somebody invents a press release that improves things, which seems unlikely.
The View From The Ground
Spend any length of time in Berwick County and the rhythm becomes obvious. Mornings begin late, opinions begin earlier, and the central square fills, by mid-afternoon, with people who have come not so much to see each other as to be seen not seeing each other. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. Conversation tends to circle the same five subjects: the weather, the news from the country, the persistent rumour about the road, the deteriorating quality of something or other, and the latest pronouncement from Subcommittee Chair Eric Pondsworth, which everyone has an opinion on and almost nobody has read. It is, in its way, the perfect microcosm of how communities of this size operate everywhere in the world, although the residents of Berwick County would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Berwick County carries on as it always has, broadly the same as last week, give or take a verb. The bins are collected when they are collected. The roundabout, where one exists, remains the roundabout. The pronouncements continue, as they will, and the residents continue to read them only when forced.
For more in this vein see also The Spoof.