Barbie at forty ...

‘Nobody told me being forty was going to be like this.

Like most of my sorority, I wasn’t looking too far in the future at that Hollywood High School graduation in 1978. Of course, I had always been quite mature for my years and people (I think we mean men here and unfortunately some feminists who should have known better) have often treated me as a sexual stereotype. People who know me would vouch that I was just an ordinary young Californian woman who had read Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch and realised she didn’t have much to worry about in that department.

But having graduated in Tennis Party Studies with Double Honours, like many of my peers I was faced with a plethora of choices about what I should be doing with the rest of my life. These included:

* Coffee morning hostess
* Ballerina
* Doctor
* McDonald’s worker
* Pilot
* Circus star
* Rock star
* Cheer leader
* Dinner party hostess
* Yoga instructor
* Astronaut
* Fashion model
* President
* Shopper
* Movie star

What was I supposed to do? It’s not really surprising that I decided to sample every one of them in my attempts to Have It All. This made it specially tough as, back then in the eighties, we were being told by Shirley ‘Superwoman’ Conran that life was too short to stuff a mushroom but, on the other hand, stuffing seemed to be the order of the day at all of the soignée dinner parties I was supposed to hold. At least being a famous astronaut enabled me to get away from this at times.

My boyfriend Ken and I had an on–off relationship for a number of years. He had asked me to marry him on several occasions, but the time had never felt right. Besides I was doing well in my chosen multiple careers and didn’t wish to be primarily known as The Person Who Washes Ken’s Lumberjack Shirt and Chinos. To be perfectly honest, as an extra in Dynasty (he was a waiter at Blake Carrington’s parties and once got to touch Joan Collins’ shoulder pad), Ken wasn’t earning a lot, and all my various salaries did create a certain imbalance in our relationship. We parted in 1996 when Ken went off into the Sierra Nevada to explore his ‘crisis of masculinity’ and discover his ‘inner stetson’, only slightly marred by his claim that I had lesbian tendencies.

I’d always been close to my nieces and nephews and, although I hadn’t discounted the idea of having children, with my extensive career portfolio and the long hours worked, having a child would have been a disaster. I think I just followed the zeitgeist and it didn’t seem to want to lead anywhere involving strawberry Calpol. But then it slowly dawned on me that my heroine Madonna – we’re nearly the same age – already had two children and a new one recently flown in from Africa and there was something in my life that wasn’t being satisfied even by one of my most recent careers as US ambassador. I began dating again.

I am currently three months pregnant at the age of forty-eight and dreading telling my boss, who I just know will say that I’m the person who had to go and have sex and screw the whole company. I forgot to tell you that the father is Ken – we had a rapprochement. I did some speed dating and guess who was the first person who didn’t hide in the toilet because he couldn’t take the pressure of being a celebrity’s boring partner as soon as he saw who I was? He is dreaming of organising a neighbourhood soccer team and owning a shed for the first time in his life. I am happy, I think, although worried that I won’t have an outfit for ‘Child Vomiting at Frequent Intervals That Will Also Have To Be Worn in Business Meeting’, but Ken thinks he may have an old fleece I can wear.’

Fortysomethings and cut-price CDS

At first you can’t believe your luck when you see that all your favourite groups and singers from the seventies and eighties are drastically reduced. But then grow depressed when you realise that no one else in the industrialised world wants to listen to songs from the Dr Strangely Strange back catalogue any more apart from you.

Fortysomethings and BBC 2

Apparently BBC2 is the TV station most likely to be viewed by the over-forties and quite honestly we’re not surprised. But maybe don’t tell anyone you turned over to watch Meerkat Manor because you thought (a) West Wing, with its overlapping dialogue, makes you think your hearing is going; (b) Lost is where your most cliched holiday nightmare ever meets The Famous Five Have a Wonderful Adventure on Kirrin Island; (c) Big Brother was the closest thing you had seen to the decline and fall of the Roman Empire since your last office Christmas party.

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.

Fortysomethings and birthdays

For those who’ve had children, birthdays – sadly – can never be quite the same again. Whether it’s the shopping in Toys R Us, getting the party theme right or the cost, they tend nowadays unsurprisingly to trigger an allergic reaction of fear and loathing.

And, of course, when it comes to your own birthday, there are now plenty of depressing scenarios revolving around (a) your age – do you really wish to receive ‘humorous’ cards reminding you that your womb and other internal and external organs and pieces of your body are either shrinking or falling to earth? (b) the fact that you’ve been around so long and have enough gift toiletry sets to sink the QE2. Is there really anything else they can buy you?

Added to which, the unfortunate truth is that reaching your forties is highly amusing to everyone apart from yourself. You’re hardly a spring chicken, but on the other hand still have some miles to go before achieving anything approaching gravitas or having people actually respect you. You’re definitely on the up and up, but think of it as Shooter’s Hill or the highest village in Essex rather than anything for anyone to get very excited about. Eventually, don’t worry, you’ll get brownie points and hopefully something nice for having survived that long. But in the meantime, some like to remind you that now you’ve finally passed the point of no return you definitely deserve a present that allows you to draw attention to yourself.

Whether your present is in the form of a day’s hang-gliding (we heard you had a death wish), a Ray Mears Survival Day (we heard you liked road kill) or a luxurious spa day (you’re a middle-aged woman, goddammit, and we couldn‘t think what else to get you), they’re all felt to be excellent ways of celebrating your mid-life crisis. All you can do is ask yourself is, after forty or more years on this planet, do your friends and relatives really see you as a sad, strange person on a suicide mission or in desperate need of deep-pore cleansing? Er, yes, probably.

Favourite Forties Birthday Presents for Men

Buena Vista Social Club
Historical novels about Roman centurion serial killers
Atlas for when the sat nav doesn’t work
Nose and ear hair clippers
Weekend washbag
Greatest Ever Football Matches DVD
Car cleaning kit
Edinburgh Military Tattoo CD
Set of Romanian spanners
Golf ball soaps
Model vintage car
Socks with clocks on
Miniature golf set


Favourite Forties Birthday Presents for Women

Duran Duran’s Greatest Hits
Book with inspirational thoughts about the menopause
Aromatherapy starter kit
Joanna Harris novel about owning a chocolate shop in France
Trug set
Hyacinth to keep in your cupboard until next Christmas
M&S perfume
Teaspoon to start your collection
Pomander
Scented drawer liners
Gift toiletry set
Ice cream making set
Pashmina
Padded coat hangers
Rampant Rabbit vibrator with a chocolate

Fortysomething men and barbecues

It is expected that sooner or later the forties man will wish to purchase a barbecue. By succumbing to his ‘inner sausage-pricker’, he is answering a call that lies deep in the male psyche to have a burning pyre in his own back garden and to wear a plastic-bra-and-panties apron. After all, if he can no longer hunt, kill and maim, he can do the next best thing and perform violent acts upon a piece of marinated meat surrounded by his neighbours. This is, of course, provided he can actually light the barbecue and (a) it doesn’t rain; (b) the Force 11 gale subsides; (c) none of the vegetarians present will mind a nice bit of Angus steak.

Everyone compliments him on his ability to successfully burn food, while his partner, who has done the family cooking for twenty years and never received any praise, is a little put out and suggests he might like to try bringing his ‘transferable skills’ into the kitchen. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when he watches Ray Mears, and the barbecue becomes the new rockery as he moves on to roasting hedgehogs on a bonfire.

Fortysomethings and nostalgia

Don’t worry: nostalgia is a perfectly normal emotion at your age. You are expected to have distinct memories that can be easily triggered by all kinds of things, which may be rich, evocative or embarrassing, although chiefly the latter in your case. It’s true that many of your nostalgic memories are from the seventies and eighties, but just see this as terribly bad luck.

Remember …

Blue Peter: Whatever happened to the wonderful world of sticky-backed plastic, advent candle coat-hanger holders and tins with pipe spills? No, please don’t tell us – it’s too distressing. Or remind us where you were when Petra died.
Smash Hits: Jason. Kylie. Wham. Bananarama. More innocent times when everyone had pores and wore bandanas and it was OK.
Top of the Pops: Never the same once Pan’s People stopped dancing in unsuitable crotch-hugging hot pants made from old curtains that your dad liked watching.
Family holidays: When everyone went on a package holiday to Spain, while being advised to take water purifying tablets with them, and brought back bullfighting posters as presents.
Smash: Was it just you, or did Smash always taste more like real potato than the real thing?
Colour spectrum: This seemed simpler too: orange and brown in the seventies, while in the eighties we moved on to neon lime and jaundice lemon.
The Establishment: Remember that? At least people then didn’t have any illusions that there was such a thing as a ‘classless’ society and Che Guevara wasn’t advertising Smirnoff.
Feminism: At least when feminists reminded us that it was a ‘patriarchal, male-dominated, sexist society’ you didn’t have to worry about the conundrum of post-feminism and Jordan.
Sex: The Joy of Sex made it seem a lot less troublesome, knowing that if you didn’t follow the bearded man and the instructions below it would just be about the propagation of the species and something rather biological – as with your parents, of course.

Fortysomethings: Still kidding yourself.

Living thirty miles and a two-hour commute from a major city still means it’s a suburb.
The slippers you bought from M&S are only for occasional use.
You’re not actually humming the first three minutes of ‘The Four Seasons’ ad nauseam because you only ever listen to Classic FM.
You didn’t really want that promotion.
Claiming that you’ve turned forty for the fourth time because it sounds less traumatic than forty-three.
You don’t possess two (at least) of your parents’ most irritating habits.
Having sex once a fortnight because you’re both too tired and it’s the only time there isn’t a child in the bed is merely a temporary blip.
You only saw Ladies in Lavender by accident.
You’ll write a bestseller soon and will look like Joanna Trollope, only even thinner.

Fortysomethings and John Lewis

It comes to most of us in the end: a realisation that we only ever wanted to live in a world of limited choice where there are only two types of latte whisk and where nothing will go out of fashion because it was never totally in fashion in the first place, and where staff do seemed pleased to see you and not regard you as a serial shoplifter. And you can get everything you could possibly want in one store … and have a decent cup of tea at the end of it.

A definite sign of middle age? Turning into one’s parents? Not actually caring anymore what one’s children say? All of these, probably. But, sorry, it’s our life, and we can buy a seriously boring mahogany sideboard if we want to.

Fortysomethings and late Gap Years

While at one time people in their fifth decade seemed quite happy to go down the well-tended primrose path to peaceful oblivion, today’s more assertive generation isn’t going anywhere gently. After twenty-odd years in the workplace and the pressures of bringing up a family, you suddenly realise that you too want a Life Changing Adventure and to collapse on some sand in Thailand thinking you’re Leonardo di Caprio in The Beach.

Inevitably it will take a fair amount of time, at your age, to convince your corporate employer that ‘time out’ will be a ‘good thing’. After all, you’ll need to justify them not paying you for six months and offering your colleagues the pick of your job roles, not forgetting how you’ll be ‘adding value’ to the company and bringing back a whole range of exciting new skills.

Skills you can claim to be bringing back:

Strategic (I’ll have a much better overview of the universe and the place of four-hour petty cash meetings in it).
Leadership (I’ll actually have made my own decisions for once without another middle-aged doppelganger telling me what to do).
Empathy (I can sense that everybody thinks I’m having a nervous breakdown, but then what’s new – at least I’ll have a decent tan).
Creative (If I haven’t thought of an imaginative way to escape this place by the time I get back, I will have failed).

What not to say to corporate employers:

I want to swim with sharks because they’ll be less lethal than you.
I want to scream into the Samaria Gorge that you’re a bunch of f***** shits.
I want to talk to a monkey because they’ll be more stimulating than you.
I want to attend a voodoo ceremony and make sure I don’t miss out any of your names.

It’s only now you wonder what exactly you’re letting yourself in for. You are in your forties after all, and old enough to be the parent of other younger Gap Yearers. It is worth remembering, however, that in many developing countries you will be felt to be in the upper echelons age-wise and would normally either be an old age pensioner or else dead. Locals will either honour you as an elder as befits your advanced age or try to understand your reasons for travelling across half the world in order to sit on a plastic carrier bag in a tent and eat Snack Pots and tell people about your mild existential crisis as a result of your horrible line manager or how Xmas 2005 with your Surrey relatives brought things to a head. It may be best to say you only wanted a break – just try not to worry whether someone’s stolen your hole-punch back in the office or if you’re going to end up with the wobbly chair when you finally return.

Fortysomethings and dating

Many fortysomethings will have last dated seriously around twenty years ago. This was a time when Wham were number one and Dynasty and padded shoulders still ruled, and obviously this could leave some people thinking that wearing a day-glo ra-ra skirt and humming ’Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ are all that you still need to meet a suitable partner. For those who may need to get a little more real, we offer a beginner’s guide to modern dating:

Speed dating: Instead of just one person saying they’re going to the toilet and then exiting without paying for their drinks or saying goodbye, you’ll now have ten, you lucky thing.
Internet dating: At least it means when you actually meet someone, neither of you has any embarrassing things left to say, as they’ve probably been covered in sufficient depth already.
Friends Reunited: If you really think the person in your class you never wanted to see again and who’s been stalking you on-line for the past five years is now the person of your dreams, it’s up to you.
Office romances: Due to the long hours culture, we’re now more likely to have affairs with our colleagues. This isn’t very surprising when the only other people most of us see during our 24/7 week clean our desks or work in late night garages.
Sexual etiquette: It’s now more common to take off your leg warmers.
Same sex: You are now no longer required to wear leather shorts, look like someone out of the Village People and have a big bunch of keys, especially if you’re not currently the office janitor.

Fortysomething ailments

You’re quite likely to be afflicted by a wide range of new ailments, physical and psychological, all of which can be traced to your advancing years. The good news is that most can easily be cured by a brisk walk and never watching Desperate Housewives ever again.

Festival Ear: Condition chiefly brought about by not having attended a rock festival for over twenty years. Early signs include the comment ‘why is the music so loud, I don’t remember it being this ear-splitting when we were playing our nose flutes at Glastonbury in 1983. What’s wrong with today’s young people?’
Texter’s Finger: That funny way people over forty text, as if it might be dangerous to exceed two letters a minute, is a condition that is only likely to worsen over time and is best dealt with in the comfort of the sufferer’s own bedroom, where at least no one can make any more smart-arse comments.
Mistaken Identity: Potentially serious condition by which you believe you are actually much younger than you are. Ages can range from early thirties to as young as six, and can be brought on by a wide range of triggers from a quick lunchtime botox to someone telling you you’d like Second Life.
Dad Dancing: Male urge to flail limbs uncontrollably as if actually performing dance movements; usually reaches peak during Paul Weller’s ‘Wildwood’. Fortunately often more distressing for the bystander than the sufferer himself.
Phantom Limbs: Affects many men who can often feel one or both legs scoring the epoch-defying winning goal at the Cup Final, even though they themselves were rejected for the works team on the grounds of apparently having two artificial left feet.
Temporary Blindness: Traumatic condition usually brought on by sudden visit to an H&M and, even though it is a typical English summer, buying items that even Kate Moss might find too embarrassing.
Senior Moments: We‘re sure you‘d prefer to draw a veil over this one. If you can even remember where you put it, that is.

Fortysomethings: Being surprised at what you know

Being Surprised At What You Know

By the age of forty it’s easy to believe your brain cells have atrophied and that on a bad day you make Jade Goody sound like Albert Einstein on steroids. But it’s worth reminding yourself that you do in fact know a remarkable number of things, all completely unrelated and useless of course, but bound to impress any group of six-year-olds who are thinking of becoming pub quiz champions:

· The plural of ‘phenomenon’.
· Every number one record from 1970 to 1980.
· The correct use of the apostrophe.
· The right ‘its’.
· How to calculate swimming pool capacities on the basis of the number of saucepans of water needed.
· The rules for using a Bunsen burner.
· The creators of Crossroads.
· At least one medieval English monarch.
· The colours of the prism.
· The names of every Cup Final winner from 1985 to the present.
· At least six theories on what The Magic Roundabout is really meant to be about.
· How to address a Bishop.
· The correct use of ‘sincerely’ and ‘faithfully’ when writing unctuously to your bank manager about an overdraft.

Fortysomethings and Time Out

Do you say: (a) I’ll read it next week; (b) Oh, God, I think it’s in the cat’s litter tray; (c) Do I really want to be sitting in a room above a pub in the Archway while a Chilean theatre group does experimental things with a Brechtian sub-text and worry about muggers on the way home?