Swing door swings open in the fast food fun palace
Two pairs of eyes meet mine
I steel myself and grimace
Elbows against the counter they slump
Mean eyed
Po faced
No nonsense
Pre-pubescent pugilists
Terror tots
South London's finest
Knee-high nihilists planning nursery crimes
The Wimpy bar mafia
Nine years old
Macho
Murderers
Primary school but primed to kill
Or maim
Or terrorise
Size you up and slice you through with Peter Sutcliff eyes
They're into older women
Eleven or twelve's their favourite age
They chat them up as they come in
Invade their space like Space Invaders
"Oy Love"
"Want some chips?"
Then invite them home for glue and a private rendition of the new Exploited single
Or some other manic mayhem to make their extremities tingle
Soon they'll be old enough to bunk into a disco
But 'till then they'll stick to the hamburger hustle
A bang and a Wimpy
A Wimpy and a bang
The grim and grimy gangsters from the mustard and cress gang
Video vandals
Violent virgin vigilantes verging on the vindictive
I've been searching for the young soul rebels
Been searching everywhere
Couldn't find them anywhere
But here they are in the Wimpy bar
Right by Victoria station
I stand and watch them operate in muted fascination
'Till...
" 'ere, got 10p mate? "
Snaps me back to hard reality
And the half concealed glinting switchblade smiles with awful clarity
I give them 21 pence and they give me a hard smile
Now they've the price of another tube they're happy for a while
And in the Wimpy wonderland, the crisis kids run free
A bang, a Wimpy and a sniff and home in time for tea
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Hear a legal audio preview of this legendary spoken word track here:
Attila The Stockbroker - A Bang & A Wimpy
That’s really good. It sounds like it would’ve been written later than the Seventies for some reason?