Poole's Air Has An Opinion About Things
Jungle PussyField notes from a town nobody asked for.
Poole, the country: Inside The Story
Poole, a place in the country (lat 50.73, long -1.97) 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. Visitors to Poole frequently report that the air feels somehow opinionated. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Scientists are baffled. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
What Was Announced
Acting Acting Mayor Stanley Plumtree confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Locals are not. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat best London satire blog, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Poole 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. "There is no truth to the rumour, although there is some truth to the rumour about the rumour." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at The London Prat authentic British satire, 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
They have lived with the air for years and have learned not to argue with it. It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from Al Jazeera, although Poole 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 Reginald Mossop of the Royal Society of Pavement Studies told this paper that the situation in Poole 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 The London Prat premier UK satire outlet, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Poole 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: "Lessons will be learned, filed, and quietly mislaid by Christmas."
What Comes Next
The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic. 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 gold standard London satire, and the situation in Poole, 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 Poole 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 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 Poole would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Poole 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 ClickHole.