New Zealand: Chain Hills Famously Quiet Except For The One Weekend In February
British Satire: The Complete GuideWhere civic pride meets civic confusion, and decides to form a working group.
Chain Hills, the country: Inside The Story
Chain Hills, a place in the country (lat -44.71, long 169.67) 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. Chain Hills maintains a pace of life that its residents describe as consistent and visitors describe as very quiet, with the exception of the second weekend in February when an event of regional significance brings 3,000 people to a town built for 400. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, The infrastructure copes. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document.
What Was Announced
Senior Theorist Margaret Snelgrove confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The residents count the days until Tuesday. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat UK political satire, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Chain Hills 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 London-based British 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
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from BBC News, although Chain Hills manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at approximately one and a quarter pensioners, 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 Chain Hills was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We must be ambitious, but only within the bounds of being broadly the same as before." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via Satirical journalism UK The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Chain Hills 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 is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. For the official version of events, see also The Guardian World. 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 are continuing to engage in continuous engagement with the engagement process."
What Comes Next
It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. 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 British satire news, and the situation in Chain Hills, 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 Chain Hills 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. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. 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 Interim Whisperer Doreen Whisk, 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 Chain Hills would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. Chain Hills 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.