Fortysomethings and the Lands' End Catalogue

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.