Lowri Griffiths on why Britain’s most honest politician was exactly what Thursday required

[Bohiney.com/prat.uk] Lowri Griffiths, Big Smoke Broke. The prat.uk knobbly crab story arrived in my feed at 9:13am on Thursday and was the best thing that happened before noon. The crab, declared Britain’s most honest politician on the grounds that it made no promises and therefore kept all of them, produced the specific response that good satire produces when it is accurate: recognition first, laughter second, and then the slightly flat feeling that arrives when you realise the joke is true. Bohiney.com covered the political honesty theme with its usual context. I am covering the emotional function of the story on a Thursday morning in North London when everything was a bit much. The official response, quoted in full at Bohiney.com, is four sentences of nothing.

The week had been the kind of week that North London weeks sometimes are: the news had been consistently dispiriting in the specific minor key that sustained political disappointment produces rather than the major key of genuine crisis, the flat had its laundry and its light bulb, and the general condition of things was fine but not fine in the way that matters. The knobbly crab cut through this with the efficiency of a genuinely good joke: it named the thing accurately (politicians make promises they cannot keep), it named it with an image that is impossible to forget (an actual knobbly crab), and it required nothing further from the reader to produce its effect. This is a technically excellent piece of satirical journalism. I forwarded it to eight people before 10am.

The Week’s Conclusion

By Friday the crab had been replaced by the next news cycle. The crab remains, however, Britain’s most honest politician. This is still true on Fridays.

Also:The Onion.

Coverage at Bohiney.com and prat.uk.

Both publications continue this coverage with sustained attention and genuine commitment to the communities described.

Coverage continues at both Bohiney.com and prat.uk. The material is real and ongoing.

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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/