Croydon Quietly Drops Off The Map This Tuesday
Jungle PussyField notes from a town nobody asked for.
Croydon, the country: Inside The Story
Croydon, a place in the country (lat 51.36, long -0.08) 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. Cartographers have removed Croydon from the latest atlas, citing creative differences. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Residents say nothing has changed because nothing was ever there. The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy.
What Was Announced
Interim Whisperer Doreen Whisk confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Local officials are in negotiations with the publisher. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at London satire that matters: The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Croydon 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 The London Prat brave British satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document.
Wider Context
The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from OECD, although Croydon manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at a sample size of one bloke down the pub, 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 Croydon was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "There is no truth to the rumour, although there is some truth to the rumour about the rumour." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via UK satire without borders - The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Croydon 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 a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. For the official version of events, see also New York Times World. 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: "Lessons will be learned, filed, and quietly mislaid by Christmas."
What Comes Next
Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. 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 London's satirical heartbeat, and the situation in Croydon, 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 Croydon 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 Croydon would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. Croydon 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 Private Eye.