Mysteriously everyone receives this catalogue once they are forty, recognising that by this age people will prefer to try on strange fleece overgarments in the privacy of their own homes and preferably without mirrors. Written in a wholesome prose style where Classic FM meets Reader’s Digest, it depicts a world of orgasmic design modifications and exciting extra features.
Land’s End is, however, the glamour end of this market, and although, like its lesser rivals, the emphasis is on sub-zero or tropical temperatures – with a concentration on bright colours for mountain rescue purposes – it at least suggests that skiing and yachting, as opposed to rambling and waiting for public transport, may be on the cards for every fortysomething.
In fact there appears to be a recognition that the forties could be a time for fresh activities that until now no one had thought of. This includes a new range of clothing for ‘perfectly bridging the gap between living room and bedroom’, where winceyette-looking fleece outfits and duvet-warm moccasins enable you to lie dreamily in your hall with your pre-bedroom cup of cocoa and a strange look on your face. If, in your new-found languor, you catch yourself dropping off, then you will need to power-lounge in ‘snow-soft’ but hygienic Polartic blankets which fortunately inhibit the nightmare growth of odour-causing bacteria, obviously felt to lurk around everyone over forty. Most people like to buy at least one item, the more sophisticated usually going for a velveteen polo neck, so that they can pretend to be Austin Powers with other consenting adults in the privacy of their own back garden.
Friday, 31 August 2007
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Fortysomethings: Personal Philosophy
By your age you should have one of these. Basically, it will suggest that if things hadn’t turned out this way, they would have turned out the other, with more than a touch of que sera sera and not forgetting je ne regrette rien, although there might be something in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance if you could only remember what it was.
Tuesday, 28 August 2007
Fortysomethings and Seventies Retro
It was bad enough surviving the original seventies; now you’re supposed to go into ecstasies at the latest seventies revival. This puts you in a dilemma: do you politely say that I had enough of those vomit-inducing chocolate orange colours and larva lamps the first time around, or cut your losses and let everyone know how retro and stylish they are? Because for many fortysomethings the seventies revival is like saying ‘come on, let’s relive my depressing adolescence in a front room in Kidderminster’ or ‘I really used to love the Crossroads Motel reception area with its psychedelic bile carpet and feel it is part of my inner psyche.’ It wasn’t an attractive look then, and is likely to lead to even more suicidal tendencies now. Only you know if you really want to have to spend half your total life living in a set from Abigail’s Party and trying not to giggle when callow younger people ask if you want to fondue. Just hope against hope that it’s not stripped pine again next.
Friday, 24 August 2007
Fortysomething achievements
It’s easy when the going gets tough and everyone seems to be blaming us for the horrible eighties – or for raising rude children – to forget that people in their forties have been responsible for many little-noticed social advances. The next time some smug baby boomer is talking their earlier generation up, let them know how it was yours and yours alone that:
· Encouraged the boom in Kumon tutors, so that no one, including your children, need ever know that you don’t understand quadratic equations, the basic laws of physics, or anything about history apart from Henry VIII’s wives.
· Made sure that rock festivals provided decent toilets instead of plague pits, so that even your teenage heavy metaller was grateful.
· Brought back Duran Duran from the dead.
· Talked up British seaside resorts as ideal for family holidays (even if it was basically because you couldn’t afford to go anywhere else).
· Made camping fashionable – er, ditto.
· Made the editor of Mojo appreciate that there was room for yet another feature on Eric Clapton or Neil Young’s health problems.
· Created a market for hen lit – why shouldn’t people know what happens beyond the post-partum divide.
· Became Yummy Mummies – why should all those corporate time management skills be wasted when you could be raising your child like a Goldman Sachs fast tracker?
· Saved Bagpuss from oblivion.
· Encouraged the boom in Kumon tutors, so that no one, including your children, need ever know that you don’t understand quadratic equations, the basic laws of physics, or anything about history apart from Henry VIII’s wives.
· Made sure that rock festivals provided decent toilets instead of plague pits, so that even your teenage heavy metaller was grateful.
· Brought back Duran Duran from the dead.
· Talked up British seaside resorts as ideal for family holidays (even if it was basically because you couldn’t afford to go anywhere else).
· Made camping fashionable – er, ditto.
· Made the editor of Mojo appreciate that there was room for yet another feature on Eric Clapton or Neil Young’s health problems.
· Created a market for hen lit – why shouldn’t people know what happens beyond the post-partum divide.
· Became Yummy Mummies – why should all those corporate time management skills be wasted when you could be raising your child like a Goldman Sachs fast tracker?
· Saved Bagpuss from oblivion.
Thursday, 23 August 2007
Fortysomethings: Life Skills
Your children are forever coming home from educational institutions apparently equipped to the hilt with these. At a time in your life when it’s easy to feel under assault from all sides, it’s good to remind yourself that you too have Life Skills. After all you must have had a life and there must be some perks resulting, mustn’t there, so just think positive. Don’t let anyone try and convince you otherwise. Just think positive. By simply doing your own Life Skills audit you may be surprised at the fascinating range you’ve gone and accumulated over the years.
A typical forties life skills profile:
Knowing what a teenager is thinking, even though she hasn’t spoken for two days.
Knowing what a parent is thinking even, though you haven’t spoken to them for two days
Able to set up a Freeview digital player so that at least you get the Shopping Channel and another which promises adult entertainment (even if it never works).
Knowing that if you turn a PC on and off enough times someone more technical than you will eventually point out that you’ve spilt ice cream and several Jammy Dodgers down your keyboard again.
Able to smile at people you don’t know with so much transparency you like to think you might be turning into Mother Theresa.
Able to reach a destination unaided by Sat Nav (er, mainly because you’re unable to use it).
Knowing that shop-bought mince pies always taste exactly the same as the other sort.
A typical forties life skills profile:
Knowing what a teenager is thinking, even though she hasn’t spoken for two days.
Knowing what a parent is thinking even, though you haven’t spoken to them for two days
Able to set up a Freeview digital player so that at least you get the Shopping Channel and another which promises adult entertainment (even if it never works).
Knowing that if you turn a PC on and off enough times someone more technical than you will eventually point out that you’ve spilt ice cream and several Jammy Dodgers down your keyboard again.
Able to smile at people you don’t know with so much transparency you like to think you might be turning into Mother Theresa.
Able to reach a destination unaided by Sat Nav (er, mainly because you’re unable to use it).
Knowing that shop-bought mince pies always taste exactly the same as the other sort.
Wednesday, 22 August 2007
Fortysomethings and men's magazines
They’re either just a little embarrassing (puerile sex fantasies for thirteen-year-olds) or boring (puerile sex and car fantasies for thirteen-year-olds). This may suggest that your early FHM days of getting excited about the prospect of Gail Porter wearing half a nurse’s uniform may be coming to an end. In the meantime, you’re still just about able to have an opinion on the size of Jodie Marsh’s breasts, but you’re not sure for how much longer.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Fortysomethings and exercise
It suddenly hits you with a vengeance that you’re unfit and something has to be done. This is why fortysomethings and health clubs are such a wonderful marriage of convenience: each knows the other’s imperfections but are happy to overlook them, blaming either temporary amnesia or big financial incentives.
It’s only when you enter the changing rooms for the first time that you realise what they’ve been keeping from you: you have to take your clothes off in front of total strangers. Fortunately everyone is discreetly staring at a fishing programme on Sky and you are allowed to put on your gym kit without embarrassment. On the other hand, you worry why no one is looking at you. Is the sight of you with no clothes on actually that hideous and disturbing?
Of course, no one wants to worry you too much, which is why the health club loves to emphasise the feelgood side of fortysomething exercise; this includes being frothed-up in the jacuzzi, watching Murder She Wrote on the plasma screen as an excuse for a little light exercise-biking, and holding a water bottle at all times in order to suggest that you’re having a lifestyle.
Even the personal assessment isn’t too insulting, chiefly because no one’s actually going to say ‘you’re so fat and unattractive that we won’t be able to allow you to pay our exorbitantly priced direct debits’. Instead they do seem to be suggesting rather a lot of swimming, i.e. at least the water will support your great weight and keep you hidden as much as possible. Not to mention Aqua Aerobics – just in case you’ve never been part of a human tidal wave before and like wearing a float while frolicking in chlorine to Zorba’s Dance.
You wouldn’t say the gym itself is a surprise, but as a cross between your worst-ever school sports nightmares and what is never shown at Guantanamo Bay, no one can truthfully say that it is geared to the needs of the averagely unfit forty-year-old. If you thought it was embarrassing stripping in front of total strangers, try adding grunting, heavy breathing, gurning, involuntary dribbling and ten different ways of saying ‘I’m going to die’ to your bundle of tricks. Soon everyone will know your body as well as your partner does – many would say even more intimately after your unsuccessful pelvic thrust with the Swiss Ball. All you can do is remind yourself that you are actually paying for this – voluntarily.
Gym etiquette for fortysomethings:
Don’t tell a member of staff that you don’t appear to have a pulse. They will know you are a first-time fortysomething.
Ditto if you appear not to be burning any calories.
Always start off with the humiliatingly easy warm-up exercises, as it is an ego boost to know that you can at least do something.
But don’t embarrass yourself by punching the air and screaming ‘y-e-e-s-s’ as you assume the warm-up exercises are all you have to do.
Just because you actually know the words to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’, there is no need to mime to them while exercising. Leave this to her.
Don’t scream out ‘I’m feeling the burn!’ after two minutes on a glorified rocking horse.
Always keep your private parts covered up in the changing area. There will be a towel big enough, don’t worry.
It’s only when you enter the changing rooms for the first time that you realise what they’ve been keeping from you: you have to take your clothes off in front of total strangers. Fortunately everyone is discreetly staring at a fishing programme on Sky and you are allowed to put on your gym kit without embarrassment. On the other hand, you worry why no one is looking at you. Is the sight of you with no clothes on actually that hideous and disturbing?
Of course, no one wants to worry you too much, which is why the health club loves to emphasise the feelgood side of fortysomething exercise; this includes being frothed-up in the jacuzzi, watching Murder She Wrote on the plasma screen as an excuse for a little light exercise-biking, and holding a water bottle at all times in order to suggest that you’re having a lifestyle.
Even the personal assessment isn’t too insulting, chiefly because no one’s actually going to say ‘you’re so fat and unattractive that we won’t be able to allow you to pay our exorbitantly priced direct debits’. Instead they do seem to be suggesting rather a lot of swimming, i.e. at least the water will support your great weight and keep you hidden as much as possible. Not to mention Aqua Aerobics – just in case you’ve never been part of a human tidal wave before and like wearing a float while frolicking in chlorine to Zorba’s Dance.
You wouldn’t say the gym itself is a surprise, but as a cross between your worst-ever school sports nightmares and what is never shown at Guantanamo Bay, no one can truthfully say that it is geared to the needs of the averagely unfit forty-year-old. If you thought it was embarrassing stripping in front of total strangers, try adding grunting, heavy breathing, gurning, involuntary dribbling and ten different ways of saying ‘I’m going to die’ to your bundle of tricks. Soon everyone will know your body as well as your partner does – many would say even more intimately after your unsuccessful pelvic thrust with the Swiss Ball. All you can do is remind yourself that you are actually paying for this – voluntarily.
Gym etiquette for fortysomethings:
Don’t tell a member of staff that you don’t appear to have a pulse. They will know you are a first-time fortysomething.
Ditto if you appear not to be burning any calories.
Always start off with the humiliatingly easy warm-up exercises, as it is an ego boost to know that you can at least do something.
But don’t embarrass yourself by punching the air and screaming ‘y-e-e-s-s’ as you assume the warm-up exercises are all you have to do.
Just because you actually know the words to Kylie Minogue’s ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’, there is no need to mime to them while exercising. Leave this to her.
Don’t scream out ‘I’m feeling the burn!’ after two minutes on a glorified rocking horse.
Always keep your private parts covered up in the changing area. There will be a towel big enough, don’t worry.
Monday, 20 August 2007
Fortysomethings and Hawkshead clothes
If you haven’t already succumbed to the delights of the aforementioned catalogue, don’t worry, you will. For inconsiderable sums of money you can find yourself lost in a world of odd-shaped cagoules, walking socks, bobble hats and seriously practical jumpers, while Kendal Mint Cake is on offer to give you that elusive Chris Bonnington moment. Photos of happy and attractive fortysomethings sitting on dry stone walls in fluffy body warmers having thermos Cup-a-Soups only re-awaken primal and bucolic urges until now buried under the weight of family and career. And you can try it all on in the privacy of your own home without the embarrassment of entering Milletts and feeling everyone is whispering ‘elasticated plastic trousers’ to you.
It’s easy to convince yourself that (in the words of the copywriter) these elasticated gaiters are ‘timeless’ and ‘classic’, mainly because they have never been in fashion and have probably been seen by nauseated sheep in the Lake District for longer than they care to remember. But do bear in mind that you will only ever wear these clothes in a local recreation ground and everyone will look at you and your partner in matching cerise nylon ponchos and Alpine boots and wonder if you know something about global warming that they don’t. You, of course, will tell yourself that this is only the start. Expect to trade up before too long to Land’s End and wear stylish Hyannis Port yachting shorts and pasty-like loafers for a visit to Southwold.
Top ten Hawkshead items
for fortysomethings
Packable trousers
Alpine gilet
Polar fleece
Alpine boots
Body warmer
Weekender socks
Fleece gaiters
Trek shoes
Nylon poncho
Farmhouse chutney
Fortysomethings and Hawkshead clothes
If you haven’t already succumbed to the delights of the aforementioned catalogue, don’t worry, you will. For inconsiderable sums of money you can find yourself lost in a world of odd-shaped cagoules, walking socks, bobble hats and seriously practical jumpers, while Kendal Mint Cake is on offer to give you that elusive Chris Bonnington moment. Photos of happy and attractive fortysomethings sitting on dry stone walls in fluffy body warmers having thermos Cup-a-Soups only re-awaken primal and bucolic urges until now buried under the weight of family and career. And you can try it all on in the privacy of your own home without the embarrassment of entering Milletts and feeling everyone is whispering ‘elasticated plastic trousers’ to you.
It’s easy to convince yourself that (in the words of the copywriter) these elasticated gaiters are ‘timeless’ and ‘classic’, mainly because they have never been in fashion and have probably been seen by nauseated sheep in the Lake District for longer than they care to remember. But do bear in mind that you will only ever wear these clothes in a local recreation ground and everyone will look at you and your partner in matching cerise nylon ponchos and Alpine boots and wonder if you know something about global warming that they don’t. You, of course, will tell yourself that this is only the start. Expect to trade up before too long to Land’s End and wear stylish Hyannis Port yachting shorts and pasty-like loafers for a visit to Southwold.
Top ten Hawkshead items
for fortysomethings
Packable trousers
Alpine gilet
Polar fleece
Alpine boots
Body warmer
Weekender socks
Fleece gaiters
Trek shoes
Nylon poncho
Farmhouse chutney
It’s easy to convince yourself that (in the words of the copywriter) these elasticated gaiters are ‘timeless’ and ‘classic’, mainly because they have never been in fashion and have probably been seen by nauseated sheep in the Lake District for longer than they care to remember. But do bear in mind that you will only ever wear these clothes in a local recreation ground and everyone will look at you and your partner in matching cerise nylon ponchos and Alpine boots and wonder if you know something about global warming that they don’t. You, of course, will tell yourself that this is only the start. Expect to trade up before too long to Land’s End and wear stylish Hyannis Port yachting shorts and pasty-like loafers for a visit to Southwold.
Top ten Hawkshead items
for fortysomethings
Packable trousers
Alpine gilet
Polar fleece
Alpine boots
Body warmer
Weekender socks
Fleece gaiters
Trek shoes
Nylon poncho
Farmhouse chutney
Friday, 17 August 2007
Fortysomethings and parties
Is 11.45 pm too early to leave a party or not? Forty pluses have a whole raft of excuses up their sleeves and should never be ashamed of using them at any time. These include:
The baby sitter has to go home.
The au-pair and her boyfriend will be waiting up for us in our bed.
Our toddler likes to watch The Shopping Channel about now.
Our Goth teenager should have done a complete cycle in their Dracula cupboard by now and will be ready for bed.
I have this thing about having to touch everything in my bedroom at twelve o’clock exactly.
The cat gets fractious.
We haven’t had an argument yet, and if we include time for the one we always have on the way home, we need to leave now.
Anything, of course, rather than admitting the truth, that you are just plain bloody knackered again, don’t want to talk to another person about house prices and feel if you could somehow be turned into a perfectly symmetrical Waitrose pumpkin at midnight your life would be wonderfully changed for the better.
The baby sitter has to go home.
The au-pair and her boyfriend will be waiting up for us in our bed.
Our toddler likes to watch The Shopping Channel about now.
Our Goth teenager should have done a complete cycle in their Dracula cupboard by now and will be ready for bed.
I have this thing about having to touch everything in my bedroom at twelve o’clock exactly.
The cat gets fractious.
We haven’t had an argument yet, and if we include time for the one we always have on the way home, we need to leave now.
Anything, of course, rather than admitting the truth, that you are just plain bloody knackered again, don’t want to talk to another person about house prices and feel if you could somehow be turned into a perfectly symmetrical Waitrose pumpkin at midnight your life would be wonderfully changed for the better.
Thursday, 16 August 2007
Fortysomethings and Brighton
The sine qua non test for every forty person – aka do I think getting a used condom up the wheels of my buggy outside Brighton Arts Club is impossibly glamorous or is it just another nail in the coffin of Western civilisation?
Once you would have loved the artistic demi-monde and its high alcohol and other substances-induced raffishness and decadence. Now you stay in an over-priced boutique hotel, can’t help noticing how everything’s terribly dirty, wonder how drinking wheat grass is going to change your life and if you ever really needed a felt handbag?
Congratulations, you’re over forty. Put it like this, your next step is probably a Jane Austen tour of Bath and a visit to an Edinburgh Woollen Mill Shop. It comes to us all.
Once you would have loved the artistic demi-monde and its high alcohol and other substances-induced raffishness and decadence. Now you stay in an over-priced boutique hotel, can’t help noticing how everything’s terribly dirty, wonder how drinking wheat grass is going to change your life and if you ever really needed a felt handbag?
Congratulations, you’re over forty. Put it like this, your next step is probably a Jane Austen tour of Bath and a visit to an Edinburgh Woollen Mill Shop. It comes to us all.
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
Fortysomethings and body piercing
Just as reason separates us from the animals, so horror at having parts of our body stapled with bits of metal and taking several hours to pass through airport security separates us from youth. If, under any circumstances, you still feel tempted, remind yourself to hang on in there as there’s always your first hip replacement to look forward to.
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
Fortysomething men and Jeremy Clarkson
Patron saint for all those fortysomething men who feel grossly outnumbered and persecuted by (a) cyclists; (b) pedestrians; (c) drivers of Toyotas; (d) speed cameras; (e) those who make unflattering comments about tight jeans on men over forty, except they haven’t been able to put it in proper sentences until now.
No one else has articulated the male mid-life crisis with such wit and confidence in its need to turn every road into an open Utah salt pan test run with Bob Seger’s Night Moves as road anthem of choice. Those close to you are usually loath to say anything, however, in case you go and attack their family runabout or something.
No one else has articulated the male mid-life crisis with such wit and confidence in its need to turn every road into an open Utah salt pan test run with Bob Seger’s Night Moves as road anthem of choice. Those close to you are usually loath to say anything, however, in case you go and attack their family runabout or something.
Monday, 13 August 2007
Fortysomethings and Duran Duran
It’s easy to smirk at your mother’s obsession for all things Cliff Richard, but have you ever thought that your on-going fascination with Simon le Bon and the boys isn’t really all that different? When is iconic iconic and when is it just four not quite fat blokes in white suits and red bandanas who aren’t stupid and have suddenly realised that you’re a demographic timebomb?
Friday, 10 August 2007
Fortysomething men and Morrissey
For some fortysomething men, still the missing link between Oscar Wilde and God. In the eighties the lyrics of The Smiths gave their sensitive younger selves the courage to do something about their solipsism, finally leave their bedrooms and attend Smiths concerts. Still an adulatory, near-hysterical following of those for whom adulthood never really happened – which is a little worrying to say the least and may give a new meaning to the concept of emotional immaturity.
Thursday, 9 August 2007
Fortysomethings and Middle England
There’s an unwritten assumption that by your advanced age you should be a fully signed-up member of this. Membership permits you to have certain inalienable rights and beliefs that are totally non-negotiable and everyone else should abide by them or else you will just have to send Simon Heffer around to give them a good seeing to.
You are expected to believe that:
· Judi Dench is a national treasure and has never made a bad film or appeared in a duff play.
· Antiques Roadshow says something about your inner psyche.
· Let them tamper with the Shipping News over your dead body.
· The BBC is Marxist.
· Jane Austen and the Vicar of Dibley are fully signed up members too.
· My Family is a situation comedy.
· The State should stop being nanny-like except when it comes to making sure that young people, gays, women and gypsies know that they are only really honorary members of society and should stop making a fuss.
· The Sixties are when Britain’s moral decline started.
· Anything else can be explained by mothers going to work.
· If you wave a copy of the Daily Mail at someone they will magically understand and apologise for being inadequate.
· You would like to carry around Lynn Truss in your handbag and she should correct the spelling of graffiti artists too while she’s at it.
· Ideally the National Trust should take over the running of the country and issue everyone with compulsory scented drawer liners.
So do you want to sign up, or don’t you?
You are expected to believe that:
· Judi Dench is a national treasure and has never made a bad film or appeared in a duff play.
· Antiques Roadshow says something about your inner psyche.
· Let them tamper with the Shipping News over your dead body.
· The BBC is Marxist.
· Jane Austen and the Vicar of Dibley are fully signed up members too.
· My Family is a situation comedy.
· The State should stop being nanny-like except when it comes to making sure that young people, gays, women and gypsies know that they are only really honorary members of society and should stop making a fuss.
· The Sixties are when Britain’s moral decline started.
· Anything else can be explained by mothers going to work.
· If you wave a copy of the Daily Mail at someone they will magically understand and apologise for being inadequate.
· You would like to carry around Lynn Truss in your handbag and she should correct the spelling of graffiti artists too while she’s at it.
· Ideally the National Trust should take over the running of the country and issue everyone with compulsory scented drawer liners.
So do you want to sign up, or don’t you?
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Fortysomethings and mini-breaks
Aka child-free zone. The most carefully planned manoeuvre since the Battle of the Bulge for many fortysomethings, and totally not to be confused with the family holiday. Likely to be accompanied by wild fantasies and dreams of doing strange non-child-oriented things that will involve uninterrupted:
1. Sex
2. Reading
3. Adult conversations
4. Meals
5. Urination
Even if the airport is miles from the destination and the people dance in felt national costumes in your hotel foyer, this will not matter. It is enough that no one is telling you what they have done in the toilet or asking you what concrete is, for a minimum of two days.
1. Sex
2. Reading
3. Adult conversations
4. Meals
5. Urination
Even if the airport is miles from the destination and the people dance in felt national costumes in your hotel foyer, this will not matter. It is enough that no one is telling you what they have done in the toilet or asking you what concrete is, for a minimum of two days.
Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Fortysomething Men and Men's Magazines
They’re either just a little embarrassing (puerile sex fantasies for thirteen-year-olds) or boring (puerile sex and car fantasies for thirteen-year-olds). This may suggest that your early FHM days of getting excited about the prospect of Gail Porter wearing half a nurse’s uniform may be coming to an end. In the meantime, you’re still just about able to have an opinion on the size of Jodie Marsh’s breasts, but you’re not sure for how much longer.
Monday, 6 August 2007
फोर्टysomethings ऎंड ग्ठे इनने
We’re part of the generation that put the permissive into society and that’s been taught to want everything now. But we’re also adults, parents, employees and responsible members of society. How do we square the two? The answer is, of course, that we don’t.
What we do have instead is a constant dialogue between our sensible inner adult and the untrammelled child/narcissist/hedonist that won’t take no for an answer. Our inner grown-up has a voice that’s a cross between an irritating life coach and one of those even more irritating but sensible British Rail pre-recorded safety announcements. We know what they’re saying makes sense, but would prefer to ignore them at our peril. There’s a vast range of situations where these conversations are never-ending and we just know this one will run and run.
Mid-life crisis
Inner Adult: You don’t think buying a brand new Harley Davidson is a rather obvious way of saying ‘I’m having a major mid-life crisis’?
You: Er, I thought it was better than buying a 4 x 4 and saying ‘I’m contributing to the environmental crisis.’ I think David Cameron should be rather proud of me.
Drinking too much
Inner Adult: It’s never sensible at your age to drink too much. Unlike twenty-year-olds, it takes you much longer to recover from the night before.
You: Well, I’m drinking much more slowly than I used to and this must be medically better, it stands to reason.
Pension
Inner Adult: You do realise you should be saving a greater proportion of your income now if you have any hope of a decently funded old age?
You: Er, I’m hoping to sell my old Syd Barrett LPs on e-Bay, alright. One of them was signed by his next-door neighbour.
Top Shop
Inner Adult: You don’t seriously think a range of clothes designed for size zero teenage models will fit you?
You: I can wear my daughter’s smock as a pashmina for one arm.
Fifty Quid Bloke in HMV
Inner Adult: Don’t you think it’s a bit profligate spending this amount of money every week on CDs and DVDs you don’t really need?
You: I don’t know how you can say this about Van der Graaf Generator’s unfairly ignored second album now available in triple gate folded de-luxe imported edition.
Office Christmas Party
Inner Adult: Is it sensible at your age to stand next to the photocopier wearing a Donna Summer disco glitter wig, and without any trousers, when you know someone is going to try and photocopy your genitals.
You: I tried to join the group discussing conditions on the M25 but they crowded me out, honest.
Being childless
Inner Adult: Doesn’t it worry you that still partying and leaving having children until your mid-forties is much too late?
You: No. At least I’ll be able to discuss the Scissor Sisters with them.
Middle England
Inner Adult: Isn’t it about time you settled down in a green and leafy place and expected everyone to listen to you as the representative voice of Britain?
You: I’d rather just watch Grumpy Old Men and Women and thank God I’m not a ranting loony yet, if that’s alright with you.
Work
Inner Adult: You should have a career action plan and work at your CV on a regular basis.
You: I did recently dress my Beanie Baby in Armani with matching briefcase. I think that was a good start, don’t you?
Parenting advice
Inner Adult: Listen to Supernanny and you might get some good tips. It looks like you could do with them.
You: I know that whatever I’m doing I’m probably doing it all wrong, but at least I’ll only have one person to blame, OK?
What we do have instead is a constant dialogue between our sensible inner adult and the untrammelled child/narcissist/hedonist that won’t take no for an answer. Our inner grown-up has a voice that’s a cross between an irritating life coach and one of those even more irritating but sensible British Rail pre-recorded safety announcements. We know what they’re saying makes sense, but would prefer to ignore them at our peril. There’s a vast range of situations where these conversations are never-ending and we just know this one will run and run.
Mid-life crisis
Inner Adult: You don’t think buying a brand new Harley Davidson is a rather obvious way of saying ‘I’m having a major mid-life crisis’?
You: Er, I thought it was better than buying a 4 x 4 and saying ‘I’m contributing to the environmental crisis.’ I think David Cameron should be rather proud of me.
Drinking too much
Inner Adult: It’s never sensible at your age to drink too much. Unlike twenty-year-olds, it takes you much longer to recover from the night before.
You: Well, I’m drinking much more slowly than I used to and this must be medically better, it stands to reason.
Pension
Inner Adult: You do realise you should be saving a greater proportion of your income now if you have any hope of a decently funded old age?
You: Er, I’m hoping to sell my old Syd Barrett LPs on e-Bay, alright. One of them was signed by his next-door neighbour.
Top Shop
Inner Adult: You don’t seriously think a range of clothes designed for size zero teenage models will fit you?
You: I can wear my daughter’s smock as a pashmina for one arm.
Fifty Quid Bloke in HMV
Inner Adult: Don’t you think it’s a bit profligate spending this amount of money every week on CDs and DVDs you don’t really need?
You: I don’t know how you can say this about Van der Graaf Generator’s unfairly ignored second album now available in triple gate folded de-luxe imported edition.
Office Christmas Party
Inner Adult: Is it sensible at your age to stand next to the photocopier wearing a Donna Summer disco glitter wig, and without any trousers, when you know someone is going to try and photocopy your genitals.
You: I tried to join the group discussing conditions on the M25 but they crowded me out, honest.
Being childless
Inner Adult: Doesn’t it worry you that still partying and leaving having children until your mid-forties is much too late?
You: No. At least I’ll be able to discuss the Scissor Sisters with them.
Middle England
Inner Adult: Isn’t it about time you settled down in a green and leafy place and expected everyone to listen to you as the representative voice of Britain?
You: I’d rather just watch Grumpy Old Men and Women and thank God I’m not a ranting loony yet, if that’s alright with you.
Work
Inner Adult: You should have a career action plan and work at your CV on a regular basis.
You: I did recently dress my Beanie Baby in Armani with matching briefcase. I think that was a good start, don’t you?
Parenting advice
Inner Adult: Listen to Supernanny and you might get some good tips. It looks like you could do with them.
You: I know that whatever I’m doing I’m probably doing it all wrong, but at least I’ll only have one person to blame, OK?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
