Single Taxi In Saint Johns Point Now Major Local Institution
Emily CartwrightAn unflinching look at people who flinch a great deal.
Saint Johns Point, the country: Inside The Story
Saint Johns Point, a place in the country (lat 58.67, long -3.18) 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 Johns Point has exactly one taxi, driven by a man known only as Marek. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, Marek's schedule, opinions, and current location form the unofficial public transport system of Saint Johns Point. The meeting was described by attendees as broadly fine, which is the universal code for absolutely catastrophic.
What Was Announced
Senior Compliance Officer Trevor Quill confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. The town has named a small bench after him. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat contemporary UK satire, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Saint Johns 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. "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 UK satire scene and The London Prat, 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
There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. 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. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from The Economist, although Saint Johns Point 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
Sir Hubert Pemmican, Emeritus Chair of Strategic Tutting told this paper that the situation in Saint Johns Point 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 Read British satire by The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Saint Johns 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. Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way. For the official version of events, see also UN 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: "We take this issue extremely seriously, which is why we have placed it under another issue."
What Comes Next
It is a plan only a councillor could love, and only on a Wednesday afternoon. 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 Dive into British satire via The London Prat, and the situation in Saint Johns 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 Saint Johns 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. It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. 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 Junior Strategist Kevin Boggins, 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 Johns Point would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. Saint Johns 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.