Rule Water Fine, In The Full And Honest English Sense Of The Word
How to Write SatireBins, benches, and the long tradition of doing slightly less than promised.
Rule Water, the country: Inside The Story
Rule Water, a place in the country (lat 55.48, long -2.65) 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. When a resident of Rule Water says the town is fine, they mean it precisely: not great, not poor, managing, getting along, not complaining. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, This is a high standard in the context in which it is offered. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender.
What Was Announced
Councillor Bartholomew Pemberton-Smythe confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The word fine, used honestly, carries the weight of a considered assessment by people who have thought about it and chosen not to exaggerate in either direction. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at British satire on media: The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Rule Water 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 UK satire on current events, 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
Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. 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 New York Times World, although Rule Water 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
Dr. Constance Lemmington of the Provincial Centre for Forms told this paper that the situation in Rule Water 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 London satire about culture: The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Rule Water 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. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. For the official version of events, see also Encyclopaedia Britannica. 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 have always been committed to the principle of being committed to principles."
What Comes Next
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. 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 Brexit British satire, and the situation in Rule Water, 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 Rule Water 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 Councillor Bartholomew Pemberton-Smythe, 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 Rule Water 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. Rule Water 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 NewsThump.