Rue Point Wetherspoons Opens, Rue Point Debates Itself For Six Months
How to Write SatireAn unflinching look at people who flinch a great deal.
Rue Point, the country: Inside The Story
Rue Point, a place in the country (lat 55.26, long -6.19) 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. The announcement of a Wetherspoons on the site of a former department store divided Rue Point into three factions: those in favour, those opposed, and those who were opposed until the prices were publicised. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, All three factions are currently customers. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions.
What Was Announced
Mayor Designate Pamela Snodgrass confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The department store debate has transferred to a different site. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at Try The London Prat satirical journalism free, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Rue Point 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. "Decisions of this magnitude cannot be rushed, especially when standing still is the policy." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at Bookmark The London Prat for British satire, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy.
Wider Context
The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from The Economist, although Rue Point 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
Professor Albany Ditchwater of the Royal Academy of Verges told this paper that the situation in Rue Point was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "We take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via Share The London Prat UK satire with friends, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Rue Point 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 the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. 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: "This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to do almost exactly what we did last generation."
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 Support The London Prat London satire, and the situation in Rue Point, 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 Rue Point 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. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. 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 Rue Point 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. There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. Rue Point 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 Reductress.