Voting For Wimpy

Last night I did my democratic duty and put a cross in a box to help lessen the impact from those foolish or ignorant enough to vote for one of the parties that make up the axis of bigotry.

I managed to get Alastair out to vote too, for only his second time. When we arrived at my voting station, the Methodist church, they couldn't find his name on the register. To our surprise, the election officer was very helpful, in that instead of knocking Alastair unconscious and throwing him in the back of an unmarked van, he rang around the other voting stations until his name was found, and gave us the address of his voting point. We left flushed with pride for the basic competence of our political system, which will remain until we see how many cunts voted for the Tories. I'm preparing for the full onset of seemingly inevitable Tory rule - we've had 12 years of Tory lite, with the Thatcherite project continued by a bunch of fools and cowards who pissed their collective conscience down the river. This time, we'll get to see it done with gusto, by true blue believers. It's a fucking terrifying prospect.

On the walk back to his house I casually mentioned my plan to write a travel book about Wimpy. Though I'm still working out exactly how to go about it, the gist is that I'll visit every single surviving Wimpy in the country, starting at the one nearest to me and fanning outwards, and see where I end up and who I meet. I expect many of them to close while I'm in transit, such is the desperate state of this once proud institution (Church, State, and Wimpy... the holy trinity).

The point of the book is to investigate the places - and people - in Britain that are unfashionable and forgotten. Wimpy is a good medium for this, since surviving Wimpies tend to be found hidden in the less loved folds in our nation's bloated geographical belly: tired satellite towns, windswept seaside resorts, Long Eaton. I will have my beautiful foreign wife in the country by then, so this should also act as an introduction to how stupid being married to me is. If she can survive six months of being forced to travel to places like Southend-on-Sea then she can survive anything. That's the hope, anyway.

I hope the book will appeal to intellectual types who enjoyed things like "Dave Gorman meets other people called Dave Gorman" and "Comedian goes around Ireland with a fridge for some reason".

Anyway, Alastair was pretty incensed. Firstly, I think, for for not thinking of it first. We discussed the idea that we attempt to get competing Wimpy books published, a bit like when two films about Volcanos / CGI ants came out the same week.

Secondly, perhaps realising that he'd be A Bug's Life to my Antz, he then indignant at my pooh-poohing of his wish to visit every single Wimpy in the country with me.

He has fair justification for this. He has been a Wimpy partner in crime these past fifteen years - indeed, if anything, he is more obsessed with it than me. I am a sophisticated Wimpy customer, willing to accept Wimpy Quarterpounders are part of a healthy and balanced diet, but that it is necessary to eat, and indeed do, other things sometimes. Meanwhile Alastair has the crazed hunger of the zealot. Back when we were teenagers, when he would visit me every summer for an exciting week in New Malden watching horror films and playing Sensible Soccer, he would wish to visit Wimpy every single day*. Through the magic of compromise, our average was thrice a week. Maybe four times.

Also, ten years ago he helped me do my grand survey of Wimpies that we had so far visited, ranking them via important categories such as "greasiness of chef" and "proximity to my house". Amazingly, given that second category, Penzance Wimpy won.

But I placated him by reassuring him that he will play a very large role in my book. How could he not?

*RIP New Malden Wimpy. Your passing has been greatly mourned