In praise of … the Tim takeoff

The sickly child in Dickens and the dog in Blyton – the literary canon was never especially kind to Tims but it was Harry Enfield who finally did for them. After the "nice but dim" caricature, the "Come on, Tim" mantra that accompanied the annual Henman heroics in SW19 was waspishly dismissed as the three most depressing words in the language; and the highbrow likes of Will Self and Martin Amis felt free to trade lowbrow gags about the life-chances of Tims being constrained. Stemming from Chichester, Major Tim Peake will not entirely dispense with the home counties image, which still dogs a name that's never graced a Labour MP. But as the first astronaut who will spacewalk with bona fide British credentials, he can surely achieve a Tim take-off. Not every namesake will scale the same giddying popularity peaks, but for all a page will be turned – opening, what the Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess, has called Tim Book 2.