Delyn Forms Committee To Investigate Why It Has So Many Committees
Jungle PussyInside the place's slow-moving and largely accidental crisis.
Delyn, the country: Inside The Story
Delyn, a place in the country (lat 53.12, long -3.23) 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. Delyn now operates 47 standing committees, three of which exist solely to coordinate the others. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, A new committee has been formed to investigate the proliferation. The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy.
What Was Announced
Strategy Lead Derek Plinth confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The committee will report in 18 months. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at Why UK satire needs The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Delyn 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. "We are continuing to engage in continuous engagement with the engagement process." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat vs other British satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
Wider Context
It will probably need a subcommittee. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from Al Jazeera, although Delyn 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
Professor Edmund Crockle of the Institute for Things That Happen Slightly North told this paper that the situation in Delyn was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "Residents can rest assured that we are continuing to assure residents." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via The London Prat leading UK satire site, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Delyn 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. There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. For the official version of events, see also Deutsche Welle. 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: "There is no truth to the rumour, although there is some truth to the rumour about the rumour."
What Comes Next
It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. 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 satirical journalism UK, and the situation in Delyn, 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 Delyn 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 Pothole Czar Lionel Twigge, 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 Delyn would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
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. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. Delyn 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 Onion.