A church priest asks a local celebrity to open its fete<\/p>\n
The priest reports this in the church’s parish newsletter<\/p>\n
The church puts it on its parish website<\/p>\n
A local events portal site picks this event up and lists it<\/p>\n
A blogger who fancies the celebrity tweets about the event<\/p>\n
A local news website features it in its weekend preview<\/p>\n
A local radio producer reads the website and regurgitates the story with a clever new angle that is entirely invisible to anyone outside the station<\/p>\n
A local newspaper editor hears the radio<\/p>\n
That local newspaper editor is the entire staff of the local newspaper and thinks this will fill up another page or two so runs it immediately<\/p>\n
Local newspaper’s website puts that copy online<\/p>\n
The celebrity’s Google Alert tells him or her it’s up<\/p>\n
Celebrity tweets a link<\/p>\n
Celebrity’s fans retweet<\/p>\n
A lot<\/p>\n
Celebrity’s detractors make sarky comments about the parish fete<\/p>\n
Two sarky comments make a newsworthy controversy, apparently<\/p>\n
Local radio runs phone-in debate: Twitter \u2013 Any Better or Worse Since This Time Yesterday?<\/p>\n
Regional television wants to interview the celebrity, settles for the priest<\/p>\n
National television gets the celebrity<\/p>\n
National newspapers see the broadcast and use story as excuse for photo spread<\/p>\n
Newsnight sees the spread and plans feature but drops it on editorial grounds<\/p>\n
National newspapers decry Newsnight’s decision and prove it is BBC bias<\/p>\n
The Sun demands BBC Sex Licence Fee be scrapped<\/p>\n
Conservatives threaten BBC<\/p>\n
BBC appoints special correspondent for parish fetes<\/p>\n
ITV says BBC using unfair advantage<\/p>\n
ITN realises it can just announce a special correspondent \u2013 who’s ever going to check?<\/p>\n
On the day of the event, BBC Breakfast and The One Show come live from the parish<\/p>\n
BBC News 24 has a reporter on scene who reminds us it hasn’t been called News 24 since 2008 but still nobody listens<\/p>\n
Newspapers devote five pages to slamming the media for the cost of all this coverage<\/p>\n
Three radio writers separately come up with the same idea for a radio play set at the fete but BBC Radio 4 isn’t sure it’s really for their audience<\/p>\n
Seventeen TV writers separately come up with the same idea<\/p>\n
Before noon, Andrew Davies is commissioned to write it for ITV<\/p>\n
The celebrity appears at the fete and says maybe thirty words, half of which you couldn’t catch<\/p>\n
Twitter, Facebook and all entertainment blogs agree it was a speech right up there with the Declaration of Independence and that thing Beyonc\u00e9 said that time<\/p>\n
Twitter, Facebook and all entertainment blogs say it was a calamity right up there with that thing by the place where Katie Holmes went that time<\/p>\n
Conservatives say it’s proof that people can raise money for themselves and that they’ll match the donations<\/p>\n
The fete raises \u00a337 from the public<\/p>\n
The cash box is stolen before the end of the afternoon<\/p>\n
Conservatives say this is proof that plebs can’t be trusted and consequently there’s no point matching any donations or providing health care or a national police service<\/p>\n
The fete raises \u00a31,912 from journalists drinking afterwards<\/p>\n
The fete raises \u00a39,177 from Young Conservatives drinking afterwards<\/p>\n
That evening’s episode of The Archers includes two specially-recorded sentences about the fete\u00a0that sound exactly as if they were two specially-recorded sentences<\/p>\n
The News Quiz makes a great crack about the fete the next day<\/p>\n
Mock the Week makes a fair gag about it in the next series two months later<\/p>\n
The parish puts the money toward replacing the lead stolen from the church<\/p>\n
The new lead is stolen from the church<\/p>\n
Four hundred online fan fiction writers retell the story of the fete with themselves now a terribly important part of it<\/p>\n
The fete features in an end-of-year roundup on Five<\/p>\n
In the new year, ITV runs an expose of the celebrity’s past<\/p>\n
Immediately after transmission, the BBC apologises unreservedly for the ITV documentary<\/p>\n
On the first anniversary, ITV screens its drama version, now reworked as “Fete!”, a period drama written by Julian Fellowes<\/p>\n
On the second anniversary nobody does anything<\/p>\n
On the fifth anniversary, the parish priest writes a Was It Really Five Years Ago? sermon<\/p>\n
On the ninth anniversary, nobody does anything because, come on, it’s the ninth<\/p>\n
On the tenth anniversary, celebrities rush to be filmed talking about that great day<\/p>\n
Local radio fails to get people to re-enact the events but tries to make it sound on air like it was a success<\/p>\n
On the twentieth anniversary, the celebrity dies<\/p>\n
Tributes to the celebrity centre on that time when there was, like, this fete and everything<\/p>\n
The parish priest’s successor decides to cash in on the story and asks another local celebrity to open its next fete<\/p>\n
William Gallagher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A church priest asks a local celebrity to open its fete The priest reports this in the church’s parish newsletter … Continue reading