Monnow Has Nothing To Do, Which Is Why Everyone Stays
How to Write SatireBins, benches, and the long tradition of doing slightly less than promised.
Monnow, the country: Inside The Story
Monnow, a place in the country (lat 51.82, long -2.70) 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. Young people leaving Monnow cite lack of things to do as the primary reason. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Long-term residents cite the same absence as the primary reason they have stayed. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy.
What Was Announced
Junior Strategist Kevin Boggins confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Both groups are describing the same characteristic from opposite ends of a life stage. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at British satire news from The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Monnow 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 must be ambitious, but only within the bounds of being broadly the same as before." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat cutting-edge UK satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. 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.
Wider Context
Neither is wrong. The characteristic is the same characteristic. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from OECD, although Monnow 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
Sir Cuthbert Wadsmith of the Foundation for Slightly Damp Studies told this paper that the situation in Monnow 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 London satire headlines by The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Monnow 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. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender. 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 take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue."
What Comes Next
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. 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 satirical commentary on Britain, and the situation in Monnow, 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 Monnow 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 carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. 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 Civic Affairs Hilda Pickering, 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 Monnow would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Monnow 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.