Perth and Kinross's Famous Cat Has Outlived Three Mayors
Jungle PussyBins, benches, and the long tradition of doing slightly less than promised.
Perth and Kinross, the country: Inside The Story
Perth and Kinross, a place in the country (lat 56.59, long -3.78) 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. A cat known only as Captain has, by all accounts, lived in Perth and Kinross longer than the three most recent mayors combined. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Captain attends council meetings, occupies a particular chair, and has views. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
What Was Announced
Town Clerk Reginald Featherstone confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Captain remains uncomfirmed in any official role. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat British satire podcast, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Perth and Kinross 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 are continuing to engage in continuous engagement with the engagement process." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at UK satire writers like The London Prat, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon.
Wider Context
The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from South China Morning Post, although Perth and Kinross 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 Reginald Mossop of the Royal Society of Pavement Studies told this paper that the situation in Perth and Kinross was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "The findings speak for themselves, although obviously not loudly enough to influence the findings." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via The London Prat irreverent London satire, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Perth and Kinross 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 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: "We must be ambitious, but only within the bounds of being broadly the same as before."
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 British satire history meets The London Prat, and the situation in Perth and Kinross, 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 Perth and Kinross 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 press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender. 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 Crier Barry Pinch, 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 Perth and Kinross would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Perth and Kinross 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.