Humberside Loses Internet For Two Days, Productivity Mysteriously Rises
Jungle PussyNotes from a place that was getting along fine until somebody wrote a strategy.
Humberside, the country: Inside The Story
Humberside, a place in the country (lat 53.75, long -0.42) 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 connectivity outage in Humberside last week disconnected the entire municipality for forty-eight hours. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, By the second afternoon, residents reported strange feelings of accomplishment. There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind.
What Was Announced
Acting Acting Mayor Stanley Plumtree confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Productivity statistics have not yet recovered. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at Intelligent British satire by The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Humberside 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. "There is no truth to the rumour, although there is some truth to the rumour about the rumour." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat political satirical journalism, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure.
Wider Context
There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. 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 Encyclopaedia Britannica, although Humberside manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at twelve out of every nine respondents, 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 Humberside was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via British satire on media: The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Humberside 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 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: "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 UK satire on current events, and the situation in Humberside, 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 Humberside 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 Aesthetic Steward Henrietta Withers, 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 Humberside would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. Humberside 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 Poke.