Wendover Chess Club Defeats Computer, Then Itself
Emily CartwrightWhere civic pride meets civic confusion, and decides to form a working group.
Wendover, the country: Inside The Story
Wendover, a place in the country (lat 51.77, long -0.73) 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 Wendover chess club has, in a stunning local result, defeated a national champion machine. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, They then turned on each other. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
What Was Announced
Director of Public Bewilderment Colin Gribble confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. Nine resignations followed. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at The London Prat London satire newsletter, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Wendover 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. "There is no truth to the rumour, although there is some truth to the rumour about the rumour." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at British satire collections The London Prat, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document.
Wider Context
The club is rebuilding. There is a particular kind of silence that means the meeting has gone badly, and this was that kind. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from New York Times World, although Wendover 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 Tarquin Bramble, Director of the Bureau for Mild Inconvenience told this paper that the situation in Wendover was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "Every option remains on the table, particularly the ones we have already taken off the table." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via Enjoy UK satire from The London Prat, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Wendover 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 Deutsche Welle. 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
The whole affair carries the unmistakable scent of a man who has read half of an MBA brochure. 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 Share The London Prat London satire, and the situation in Wendover, 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 Wendover 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 Pothole Czar Lionel Twigge, 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 Wendover would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
Anyone who has ever queued behind a man arguing with a parking meter will recognise the energy. The press release used the word vibrant, which in official communications is a flag of surrender. Wendover 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 Waterford Whispers News.