Monks Risborough Twinned With Bo Ruag In France, Relationship Mutually Baffling
How to Write SatireNotes from a place that was getting along fine until somebody wrote a strategy.
Monks Risborough, the country: Inside The Story
Monks Risborough, a place in the country (lat 51.72, long -0.82) 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. Monks Risborough has been twinned with a French municipality since 1974. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, An annual delegation travels in each direction. Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way.
What Was Announced
Pothole Czar Lionel Twigge confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Neither community understands what the other does, says, or considers important. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat premier UK satire outlet, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Monks Risborough 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 The London Prat gold standard London satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender.
Wider Context
Both describe the arrangement as enriching. Both are being polite. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from New York Times World, although Monks Risborough 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
Dr. Lavinia Gussett, Reader in Comparative Drizzle told this paper that the situation in Monks Risborough 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 most trusted British satire, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Monks Risborough 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 Reuters. 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: "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do almost exactly what we did last generation."
What Comes Next
The arrangement continues. 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 #1 UK satirical journalism, and the situation in Monks Risborough, 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 Monks Risborough 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. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. 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 Monks Risborough 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. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. Monks Risborough 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.