Name: Landmarks of the M40 2023.
Age: Brand new.
Appearance: Twelve very slightly different pictures of the 89-mile road that runs through Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.
I love the M40. It has the 12th highest junction-to-junction average daily vehicle flow in the UK. Actually, I hate to break your heart, but I think you’ll find that the M27 claims that honour. The M40 only has the 13th highest junction-to-junction average daily vehicle flow.
I see I’m dealing with a real M40 connoisseur here. You are, but I’m not alone. The makers of a new M40 calendar are being flooded with interest from around the world, apparently.
Wow, that must be an incredible calendar. I mean, it isn’t. One month has a picture of the Stokenchurch Gap near Princes Risborough. Another is just a picture of some pylons.
Sounds boring. It is! Arguably the most boring calendar of the year, in fact, and there is stiff competition. Other 2023 calendars available to buy include Car Parks of Britain, Extraordinary Chickens and World’s Greatest Mullets.
Who on earth would buy this? You would be surprised. Motorway Vistas, the company that produces the M40 calendar, claims that the product has taken off beyond all belief. Orders have come in, it says, from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Florida and California.
Yes, but why? The M40 is a glorious stretch of road, that’s why. If you want to travel between London and the Midlands, and avoid the hellish rat run of the M1 and the M6, the M40 is for you.
What is so special about it? What isn’t so special, you mean? This motorway has it all. Beaconsfield services, easy access to the house that provided the exterior shots in The Vicar of Dibley, the temporary lane drop around junction eight. It has everything. Everything.
But who would buy an entire calendar of that? People who hate you, obviously.
What? This has office secret Santa written all over it. If you have to buy a Christmas present for someone you don’t like – or you care for them so little that you can’t be bothered to put any thought into who they are as a person – you buy them an ironic little joke present like this, and everyone is happy.
So all of this is just a joke at the M40’s expense. Sadly, yes. But as long as the M40 still has true believers, it will never die.
Do say: “March is my favourite photo. There’s a bridge in it.”
Don’t say: “They should have made an M48 calendar. It makes the M40 look like the M45.”
