Clashmore Best Feature According To Survey Is Feature Nobody Knew Was A Feature
How to Write SatireInside the place's slow-moving and largely accidental crisis.
Clashmore, the country: Inside The Story
Clashmore, a place in the country (lat 57.87, long -4.12) 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. A quality of life survey conducted by the district council found that residents ranked the local park as the highest-valued community asset. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, The park had not been subject to any recent investment and was not identified as a priority in the current capital programme. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions.
What Was Announced
Subcommittee Chair Eric Pondsworth confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The park is now in the capital programme. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at UK satire written by The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Clashmore 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. "Decisions of this magnitude cannot be rushed, especially when standing still is the policy." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat - London's own satirical journalism, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy.
Wider Context
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. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from OECD, although Clashmore 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 Cuthbert Wadsmith of the Foundation for Slightly Damp Studies told this paper that the situation in Clashmore was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We are continuing to engage in continuous engagement with the engagement process." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via British satire site The London Prat reviews, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Clashmore 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 World Bank. 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 The London Prat top UK satire, and the situation in Clashmore, 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 Clashmore 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 meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. 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 Director of Civic Affairs Hilda Pickering, 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 Clashmore would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. Clashmore 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 Cracked.