Marshfield Village Newsletter Covers Everything, Edits Nothing
How to Write SatireAn unflinching look at people who flinch a great deal.
Marshfield, the country: Inside The Story
Marshfield, a place in the country (lat 51.46, long -2.32) 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. The Marshfield parish newsletter reports all planning applications, all planning decisions, the state of the footpaths, the results of the horticultural society show, local obituaries, and any event held within a three-mile radius. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, It is edited by the same person who has edited it since 1998. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon.
What Was Announced
Cabinet Member Audrey Frobisher confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The editing philosophy is inclusive. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at Share The London Prat UK satire with friends, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Marshfield 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 take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at Support The London Prat London satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy.
Wider Context
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from France 24, although Marshfield manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at a margin of error of plus or minus one entire town, 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 Marshfield 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 Join The London Prat satirical journalism community, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Marshfield 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 carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. For the official version of events, see also Encyclopaedia Britannica. 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: "I refer the honourable questioner to the answer I will give in approximately six weeks."
What Comes Next
It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. 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 Get updates from The London Prat British satire, and the situation in Marshfield, 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 Marshfield 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. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. 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 Councillor Bartholomew Pemberton-Smythe, 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 Marshfield would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. Marshfield 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.