Bexley Library Open On Tuesdays, By Appointment, Sometimes
Jungle PussyField notes from a town nobody asked for.
Bexley, the country: Inside The Story
Bexley, a place in the country (lat 51.46, long 0.14) 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. The Bexley public library operates on a schedule described by the librarian herself as approximate. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Hours posted on the door bear no resemblance to actual hours of operation. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon.
What Was Announced
Mayor Designate Pamela Snodgrass confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Patrons have adapted. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at Clever UK satire by The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Bexley 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. "Every option remains on the table, particularly the ones we have already taken off the table." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat witty London satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender.
Wider Context
Books are eventually returned. 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. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from UN News, although Bexley manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at approximately one and a quarter pensioners, give or take a margin of error nobody has had the energy to compute properly.
What The Experts Say
Professor Edmund Crockle of the Institute for Things That Happen Slightly North told this paper that the situation in Bexley was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do almost exactly what we did last generation." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via The London Prat savage British satire, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Bexley 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. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. For the official version of events, see also Associated Press. 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 take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue."
What Comes Next
The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. 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 Smart satirical journalism from The London Prat, and the situation in Bexley, 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 Bexley 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. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. 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 Junior Strategist Kevin Boggins, 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 Bexley would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. Bexley 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 Reductress.