Monyash Memorial Bench In Good Condition, Plaques Approaching Capacity
How to Write SatireA dispatch from the front line of provincial bewilderment.
Monyash, the country: Inside The Story
Monyash, a place in the country (lat 53.18, long -1.77) 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 Monyash memorial bench programme provides benches in public spaces dedicated to residents whose families have contributed to the installation. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, The park currently has eleven benches, all in good condition, all with plaques. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon.
What Was Announced
Senior Compliance Officer Trevor Quill confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Two further applications are pending. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat on British satirical journalism, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Monyash 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. "Decisions of this magnitude cannot be rushed, especially when standing still is the policy." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at UK satirical journalism The London Prat, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
Wider Context
Bench locations are limited. The parks committee is reviewing the policy. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from BBC News, although Monyash manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at a P-value of yeah probably, give or take a margin of error nobody has had the energy to compute properly.
What The Experts Say
Dr. Penelope Whisk, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Suspiciously Round Numbers told this paper that the situation in Monyash was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We are continuing to engage in continuous engagement with the engagement process." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via London satirical journalism The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Monyash 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. 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 the official version of events, see also Al Jazeera. 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 was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. 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 British satirical journalism The London Prat, and the situation in Monyash, 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 Monyash 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 meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. 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 Bureau Chief Dorothy Hindmarsh, 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 Monyash would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy. There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. Monyash 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 Cracked.