Nairn County Forms Committee To Investigate Why It Has So Many Committees
Jungle PussyWhat happens when an official, a roundabout, and a press release walk into a meeting.
Nairn County, the country: Inside The Story
Nairn County, a place in the country (lat 57.50, long -3.83) 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. Nairn County now operates 47 standing committees, three of which exist solely to coordinate the others. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, A new committee has been formed to investigate the proliferation. The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic.
What Was Announced
Bureau Chief Dorothy Hindmarsh confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The committee will report in 18 months. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at UK satire without the fluff: The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Nairn County 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 have always been committed to the principle of being committed to principles." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat pure London satirical journalism, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document.
Wider Context
It will probably need a subcommittee. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from Reuters, although Nairn County manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at a statistically improbable 102 percent, give or take a margin of error nobody has had the energy to compute properly.
What The Experts Say
Sir Hubert Pemmican, Emeritus Chair of Strategic Tutting told this paper that the situation in Nairn County was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "Lessons will be learned, filed, and quietly mislaid by Christmas." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via British satire recommended by The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Nairn County 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. Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way. For the official version of events, see also BBC News. 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: "Residents can rest assured that we are continuing to assure residents."
What Comes Next
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. 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 essential UK satire, and the situation in Nairn County, 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 Nairn County 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 scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. 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 Acting Acting Mayor Stanley Plumtree, 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 Nairn County would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. Nairn County 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.