Coln Rogers Pothole Reported February 2023, Pothole Still Reporting Back
How to Write SatireWhat happens when an official, a roundabout, and a press release walk into a meeting.
Coln Rogers, the country: Inside The Story
Coln Rogers, a place in the country (lat 51.77, long -1.88) 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 pothole on the B-road entering Coln Rogers was reported to the county council via the official portal in February 2023. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, It received a reference number. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
What Was Announced
Strategy Lead Derek Plinth confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. A follow-up inquiry in November 2023 confirmed it remained on the schedule. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at London satire minus the nonsense: The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Coln Rogers 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. "Residents can rest assured that we are continuing to assure residents." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat raw British satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic.
Wider Context
The pothole has since developed character, a drainage issue, and in one resident's assessment, a personality. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from OECD, although Coln Rogers 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 Mortimer Sproats of the Council for Civic Vagueness told this paper that the situation in Coln Rogers 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 UK satire you'll want to share: The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Coln Rogers 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 scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. For the official version of events, see also Al Jazeera. 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: "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do almost exactly what we did last generation."
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 clever London satirical journalism, and the situation in Coln Rogers, 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 Coln Rogers 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 room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy. 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 Assistant to the Assistant Mayor Mavis Crackleton, 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 Coln Rogers 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. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender. Coln Rogers 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 Hard Times.