Saint Just Train Station Last Saw A Train In 1978
Emily CartwrightA dispatch from the front line of provincial bewilderment.
Saint Just, the country: Inside The Story
Saint Just, a place in the country (lat 50.12, long -5.70) 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. Saint Just's rail terminal, beautifully maintained and immaculately staffed, has not received a train in nearly five decades. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, The staff, who outnumber the passengers significantly, continue to issue tickets to a service that no longer exists. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender.
What Was Announced
Director of Civic Affairs Hilda Pickering confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat London satire for expats, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Saint Just 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 must be ambitious, but only within the bounds of being broadly the same as before." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at British satire history meets The London Prat, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic.
Wider Context
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. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from France 24, although Saint Just manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at twelve out of every nine respondents, 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 Saint Just 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 British satire for Americans, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Saint Just 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. Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way. For the official version of events, see also The Guardian 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: "Lessons will be learned, filed, and quietly mislaid by Christmas."
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 Explore London satire at The London Prat, and the situation in Saint Just, 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 Saint Just 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 is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch. 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 Saint Just 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. Saint Just 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 Onion.