The town of Grisworth-upon-Grumble ran on complaints the way other towns ran on coal or wind or the water that turned the old mill wheel on the edge of Fenwick Road.
The infrastructure was straightforward, once you understood it. Each complaint filed at the Municipal Complaints Office on the high street generated a small but measurable quantity of power. A minor complaint (the bin collected late, the bread from Hassop's too dense) produced roughly two watts. A medium complaint, the kind that required a form and a follow-up letter, produced twelve to fifteen. A major complaint, filed in triplicate with supporting evidence, could power the town hall for a week.
The streetlights ran on a constant low-level hum of dissatisfaction. The school was heated by the parent evenings alone.
Nobody remembered who had first discovered the connection between complaints and energy. There was a plaque on the wall of the Complaints Office that said the system had been established in 1842 by the first Mayor, Aldous Grimshaw, after he noticed that the town felt livelier (the lights brighter, the fountains more vigorous) on the days when the market traders argued loudest. But the plaque had been installed by the second Mayor, who had reasons to flatter the first, and so the history was treated, like most history, as approximately true.
What was undisputed was that the system worked. The town was well-lit. The roads were smooth, funded by the residents' ongoing fury about the roads. The schools were excellent, powered by the universal conviction that they could be better. The hospital ran at full capacity on a permanent endowment of complaints about the hospital.
| Complaint Category | Avg. Watts | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Bin collections (late) | 2.1w | Steady |
| Bread density (Hassop's) | 3.4w | Reliable |
| Parish council decisions | 14.7w | Excellent |
| The new lampposts | 4.2w | Good |
| Unspecified general mood | 0.8w | Low |
| Visitor satisfaction | −3.0w | ⚠ NEGATIVE |
CIVIC NOTICE — Ref: GW/2024/881
The Municipal Complaints Authority wishes to remind all residents that complaints must be filed in person, by post, or via the drop-box on the corner of Fenwick and Grimshaw Roads.
Complaining into the air, while appreciated in spirit, does not power the grid.
Residents generating fewer than 4 complaints per quarter are reminded that the minimum civic participation threshold is 4 complaints per quarter.
Current quarter deficit: 3 residents. You know who you are.
The residents of Grisworth were not, on the whole, unhappy people. This was a common misconception among outsiders, who visited expecting a grim and miserable town and found instead a place of remarkable civic pride, efficient services, and an unusually warm community spirit, all of which ran, without exception, on the energy of people being extremely vocal about the things that bothered them.
Mrs. Bream of number six Grimshaw Road had been the town's top contributor for eleven years. Her speciality was the pavements, which she considered uneven, and the speed of the post, which she considered unconscionable. She had powered the library refurbishment single-handedly.
"A complaint is not a cry of despair. It is an act of civic love. You only complain about things worth complaining about."
— Mayor Percival Grimshaw IV, Annual Address, 2019
The trouble began on a Wednesday in October, when a girl named Nell arrived in Grisworth on the twelve-fifteen coach from Alderswick, carrying a small bag and a temperament that the town, upon meeting it, found deeply alarming.
Nell was nine years old and possessed of a cheerful and accommodating nature. She found the town charming. She found the bread at Hassop's delicious, with good heft to it. She found the pavements characterful. When the No. 7 bus was four minutes late, she said, "That's all right, I wasn't in a hurry," which produced a small but measurable dip in the streetlight output on the corner of Fenwick Road.
Her aunt, Mrs. Vicker, who had lived in Grisworth for forty years and generated a reliable eighteen to twenty watts per week, watched her niece with concern.
"You'll need to find something," said Mrs. Vicker at dinner.
"Something?" said Nell.
"Something to complain about."
Nell considered this. "The salt cellar's a bit stiff," she offered.
Mrs. Vicker checked the reading on the small power gauge she kept on the kitchen windowsill, a fixture common to all Grisworth households. The needle had moved less than a millimetre.
"That's not a complaint," said Mrs. Vicker, not unkindly. "That's an observation."
EMERGENCY POWER ADVISORY
The Municipal Authority recorded a 6.3% drop in overnight generation on Wednesday. Meteorological causes have been ruled out.
Residents near Fenwick Road are asked to check their gauges and file a minimum of two additional complaints before Friday.
The hospital is currently on amber reserves.
By Thursday the power deficit had been traced directly to Nell's presence by the Chief Complaints Engineer, a meticulous man named Mr. Hatch, who had never in his professional life encountered a negative contributor.
"She doesn't generate," he told the Emergency Civic Committee, which had convened in the town hall over biscuits that everyone agreed were not quite right, which helped. "She absorbs. When she says something is fine, it costs us. When she says something is lovely, the hospital loses a watt."
"What happens if she says something is wonderful?" asked Councillor Fry.
Mr. Hatch checked his notes. "We haven't modelled that. I'd rather not find out."
The committee discussed the matter for two hours, which powered four streetlights and the north wing of the school. Several proposals were made, including a polite note asking Nell to leave, a civic bylaw requiring minimum dissatisfaction levels from visitors, and a scheme to assign her a personal complaint mentor.
They settled on the mentor. Mrs. Bream volunteered immediately.
Mrs. Bream arrived at Mrs. Vicker's house at eight on Friday morning with a notebook, a list of grievances, and forty years of practice.
"The object," she told Nell, who was eating toast and looking out at the grey October morning with apparent pleasure, "is not to be miserable. The object is to care. About things. Enough to say so."
Nell thought about this. "The toast is a bit cold."
The kitchen gauge twitched. One and a half watts.
"Better," said Mrs. Bream. "Now. The pavements."
Over the following three days, Mrs. Bream walked Nell around every street in Grisworth with the patience of a very experienced teacher and the enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loved what she was teaching. She showed Nell the pavement outside the post office that had been uneven since 2004 and the council's seventeen responses over eighteen years. She showed her the bus timetable and the gap between the printed times and the actual times, which she maintained was a gap of significance.
She showed her Hassop's bread, which was, if you paid attention, genuinely too dense. Not inedibly so. But objectively more dense than bread needed to be, and the denseness had a quality of intention to it, as though Mr. Hassop considered density a virtue, which it was not, not in bread.
Nell tried a piece and chewed thoughtfully.
"He could have gone lighter on the proving time," she said.
Mr. Hassop, who was standing behind the counter, looked up sharply.
The gauge on the wall jumped to twelve watts. The lights brightened visibly. The till rang for no reason.
"That," said Mrs. Bream, with deep satisfaction, "is a complaint."
By the following Wednesday Nell had filed four complaints with the Municipal Office: the proving time, the pavement, a drain on the corner of Marsh Street that made an unsatisfactory noise in the rain, and a more philosophical complaint about the placement of the town's single bench, which faced away from the river and toward the back wall of the hardware shop, which she felt was a decision that reflected poorly on whoever had made it.
The bench complaint alone generated nine watts and prompted an emergency meeting of the Parks Sub-Committee.
The bench was turned to face the river by the end of the month.
Nell said it was much better, which cost them two watts, but everyone agreed this was a reasonable trade.
She came back the following summer, and the summer after that, and eventually she stopped being a visitor and became a resident, which required a formal registration at the Complaints Office and a minimum commitment of four complaints per quarter and a small ceremony with biscuits.
The biscuits, she noted, were slightly stale.
The lights came on.