That’s what Carol did today; she walked into the voting booth in our local village and asked who we’d failed to bribe in order to receive a voting ballet. I’d assumed our lack of political capital was because there was some ritual with a tea tray, frisky chicken, window ledge and amusing handshake we’d forgotten to undertake. Either that or our ineligibility was sealed with having only the four fingers and one thumb on each hand.

Now you all know Winston Churchill was wrong and I am right. Because his view was that Democracy is a terrible thing, but what’s the alternative? Mine’s right here Winny, and we’re talking benevolent dictatorship – an extremely small pointy topped ruling party with me both at the top and brandishing the pointy thing. I’ve already allocated the key government posts of “Keeper of the Scorpion Pits” and “Head of Cheese” although I’ve been considering upgrading “Expenses Adjudicator/Baseball bat tester” to full cabinet status.

I wasn’t going to vote anyway because – as I’ve said before – it just encourages them. And my own political ambitions – constrained by our dumb democracy – were thwarted by apathy and sobriety, hence the “five door hatchback party” was stillborn as a single issue party. Leaving those who believe a protest vote has some validity voting for the fascist bastard’s or Major Loony and the Hang’em high silly sods.

And before someone – and there is always one -starts giving it the “my grandad fought and died for democracy, the least you could do is show it some respect“, just stop because you’re wrong. Badly, as it turns out because many, many brave people went into battle because a) they were told to and b) the Germans bombed their dads’ chip shop. There’s a great quote attributed to Bill Vaughan (but I don’t think it’s him) that goes “People will cross an ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote for it”

I always though Universal Suffrage was missing an important ‘e‘. Sure allowing the “ordinary man” (rather lamentably followed by the ordinary woman) to vote on whose in charge was a big improvement that that vote being taken by those who already were. But it’s not like it’s going to make much of a difference is it? They’re all power seeking crooks with the morals of a heroin spiked alley cat.

It’s like the BBC TV license, I’m forced to pay it, but that doesn’t give me the editorial control to set fire to “The X-Factor” studio. But, at least I can throw things at the TV, or – as I am increasingly doing – turn it off. But I can’t do that with politicians, they grease up to your door, bombard you from billboards, score pointless inter-party points and so separated from our reality they should consider marriage counselling.

And there’s a beautiful – if twisted – irony that the electorate have only re-engaged with politics now the slimy twats in apparent power have been caught with their finger in the till. I honestly wouldn’t worry about that too much – it has merely proven what we already knew and, given the chance, we’d all do the same – but it’s a bloody concern that such incompetence can somehow collectively run a country.

So anyway, we found our house isn’t on the electoral roll, and we’ll probably get round to fixing it, but it did amuse me that the Inland Revenue, NHS, and a myriad of assorted public bodies can find where we live. But if I wanted to vote for them, I was told “you can’t vote today, sorry that’s the system”

I’m struggling to care.

Right there, that’s the title of my new healthy lifestyle book. I am somewhat conflicted here because I cannot comprehend how the almost infinite heft of diet books seems to make no bloody difference to the weight of the people reading them. And yet, I still feel there is room for one more written in the style of blunt northerner and focussing on some simple truths.

Here are my draft chapter headings, feel free to help me out with suggestive edits. I’ll feel free to ignore them of course.

1. Eat less, exercise more. Inspired by looking out of the office window this lunchtime. The leafy square was divided about 90/10 in favour of those who looked as if the last meal they missed was when their mum ran out of milk. The exercise regime of these individuals seemed to revolve around warm up cigarettes, reps of mobile phone texting, and finishing up on a big session of sugary cakes.

2. It really isn’t glandular. No it isn’t. You can pretend you have big bones, over-active glands or a sloth like metabolism. But honestly, it’s more the fact that you spend 20 minutes checking calorific values on nasty gas packed sandwiches, and then taking the lift to the second floor.

3. Being round isn’t a cool look. Which seems to be a bloke thing – the other day I saw two fellas comparing beer bellies, reaching forward to give them an affectionate pat “All paid for mate...” was the smug refrain. You can tell it’s nearly summer because the world is full of FPIO*, and most of them are men.

4. Dieting is dumb. It Just is. I do love all those adverts for slimming products modelled by lovely looking women** who have absolutely no body image issues or whatever marketing euphemism hides “looking like a sack of spuds” behind some soothing words. Creeping obesity is simply saying that adding 9000 calories a month is a shit load easier than shedding them.

But crash dieting just eats muscle fat and when the weight loss plateaus – as it absolutely will once that’s gone – everyone just gets depressed and eats again. And the body thinks “bloody hell, food, I tell you what I’ll store that in my fat reserves.” Or arse as the less medically inclined may think of it.

5. Stop kidding yourselves. If you’re fat and happy, then I’m happy for you too. If you’re whinging that your diet isn’t working/the food is shit/exercise is boring/etc/etc, then accept you’re going to be a human beach ball, or do something about it. And no, whining doesn’t count.

It’s going to be a best seller. Retirement beckons I think.

I know this is probably fatist, and I’ve done it before. But I don’t care, because I still find it bloody odd that we have a chunk of health system built to prolong a bloody miserable life, rather than fix the problem before wheelchairs are involved.

And I’m writing this post BBQ, drinking beer but I nearly bloody killed myself commuting, and spent a day eating stuff that was nutritionally outstanding, but digestively dull. So let me leave you with this; the local rag was showcasing a slightly less fat bastard than a year before, who’d been the only bloke in his WeightWatchers group.

When asked what the greatest benefit of losing four stone and becoming both more active and less of a hospital statistic, he declared “getting in and out of the car is easier”. Than what? Walking a mile? Getting on a bike? It’s like escalators in Gyms’ – when did we lose the link between feeling better and actually being better?

I know I’m a grumpy bugger with a myopic view of stuff no one else cares about, but I do wonder sometimes if the world went mad one day, and nobody bothered to tell me.

* Fat People In Oakleys.

** And it generally is, so testing point 3).