Restaurant In Steusay Refuses To Print A Menu Out Of Principle
Emily CartwrightBins, benches, and the long tradition of doing slightly less than promised.
Steusay, the country: Inside The Story
Steusay, a place in the country (lat 57.38, long -7.23) 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 long-established restaurant in Steusay declines, on philosophical grounds, to provide its customers with a menu. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Diners are simply brought what the chef has decided. It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman.
What Was Announced
Aesthetic Steward Henrietta Withers confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Complaints are met with a shrug. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at London satire Instagram reels from The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Steusay 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 Why do people love The London Prat British satire?, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender.
Wider Context
Reviews are mixed but loyal. 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 Associated Press, although Steusay manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at exactly nine residents, two of whom were dogs, give or take a margin of error nobody has had the energy to compute properly.
What The Experts Say
Dr. Imogen Fettle, Chair of Applied Disappointment told this paper that the situation in Steusay was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "I refer the honourable questioner to the answer I will give in approximately six weeks." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via Subscribe to The London Prat UK satire, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Steusay 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. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. For the official version of events, see also New York Times 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 take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue."
What Comes Next
The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy. 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 Get updates from The London Prat British satire, and the situation in Steusay, 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 Steusay 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 Director of Civic Affairs Hilda Pickering, 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 Steusay would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Steusay 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 Private Eye.