Lorgill Refuses To Acknowledge Existence Of Longriggend
Emily CartwrightAn unflinching look at people who flinch a great deal.
Lorgill, the country: Inside The Story
Lorgill, a place in the country (lat 57.38, long -6.70) 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. Residents of Lorgill have, by long tradition, refused to refer to Cranley by name, preferring the neighbouring place or that other one. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, The reason is buried in a 19th-century property dispute that no one alive can fully explain. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
What Was Announced
Bureau Chief Dorothy Hindmarsh confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. 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 more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat UK political satire, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Lorgill 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. "Every option remains on the table, particularly the ones we have already taken off the table." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at Best UK satire The London Prat, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon.
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 The Economist, although Lorgill manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at the precise figure of three and a half people, 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 Lorgill was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We have always been committed to the principle of being committed to principles." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via Satirical journalism meets London satire at The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Lorgill 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 South China Morning Post. 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 are continuing to engage in continuous engagement with the engagement process."
What Comes Next
The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. 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 original satirical journalism, and the situation in Lorgill, 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 Lorgill 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. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. 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 Public Bewilderment Colin Gribble, 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 Lorgill would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. Lorgill 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 ClickHole.