I don’t feel old but my body is too heavy and too brittle these days to cash the cheques my inner 19-year-old is writing
When I’m sitting at a laptop with a mug of tea, there are no reminders at all that I’m getting old
OLD age doesn’t arrive suddenly. You don’t wake up one morning to find your knees don’t work and that you can’t remember where you put your spectacles. It’s a gradual thing. Like dusk.
In my head, I’m still about 19. I can still get drunk and fall over and stay up late. And what’s more, I like doing these things.
I find childish films like The Hangover and Horrible Bosses funny. I cock about with my kids. I play tennis, sort of, and I reckon I still know how to ski.
But on holiday last week, it became clear that the leaves have started to fall off the tree of life, that the sun is going down and that soon, I shall be a drooling vegetable.
We were in Sri Lanka, the sun was shining and after about 15 punishing bottles of the local beer, I thought it would be an excellent idea to join my kids in the ten-foot waves. They were having a riot, diving under the giant breakers and emerging on the other side, squealing with delight.
So, to the amazement of everyone on the beach, who’d thought until that point that I was some kind of stranded sea creature, I ran into the water and dived into the first wave. I’m not sure exactly what happened next but my head was concertinaed into my shoulders and my left arm felt like it had followed the example of my swimming shorts. And come off.
My eldest daughter suggested I should stick to the rather more leisurely pursuit of bodyboarding. It’s sort of like surfing, only you lie down and I liked the sound of that.
The rules are simple. After the wave has broken, you are transported on a piece of polystyrene back to the beach in great comfort.Hmmm. Not when you’re my age, you aren’t.
As the wave approached, I leaped on to the board which, because I’m a bit fat, sank immediately to the sea bed, which is where I lay as the wave removed my trunks again. And my other arm.
It’s so sad. I don’t feel old but my body is too heavy and too brittle these days to cash the cheques my inner 19-year-old is writing.
Seeing how upset this made me, my son offered to take me on at croquet, a sport which requires the same amount of effort as snoozing in a deckchair or being dead.
Nothing could go wrong. And nothing did. For about three minutes. When my back snapped.
So we went for a cycle ride, which was fine, but only because I had to push the bike up all the hills, and then, because the saddle had broken my a***bone, down the other side again.
After the first bum-breaking hundred yards, I never really got on it at all.
We are told when we are pushing 60 that we need to become active, that we need to face the coming of the night with fresh air in our lungs and a bit of sweat on our forehead.
But this is impossible. Which is why I’m glad to be back at home, writing this.
Because when I’m sitting at a laptop with a mug of tea, there are no reminders at all that I’m getting old.
Danny delivers punchline
MAJOR name-dropping here, I’m afraid, but a few years ago I was having lunch with Jimmy Carr and rugby player Danny Cipriani.
Jimmy was being his usual self, coming up with a stream of one-liners when Danny – who looked a bit put out – turned to me and said: “Why does he have to be funny all the time?”
“Because he’s a comedian,” I replied. “Yes,” said Danny. “I’m a rugby player but it doesn’t mean I have to tackle everyone on their way to the buffet table.”
Now, of course, it’s alleged, he actually does.
Schuey needs schush
THE mayor of a Majorcan town claimed this week that the gravely injured Michael Schumacher is moving to the area very soon and that everything is being done to make him feel welcome.
No it isn’t, you halfwit.
What Michael needs is peace and quiet, not some jumped-up councillor bouncing around outside his front door, yelling to all and sundry: “He’s in here! He’s in here!”
Barnsley FC
AS I was born and bred in Doncaster, I feel obliged to hate everything about the neighbouring town Barnsley.
However, the letter written by their football club’s chief executive, Gauthier Ganaye, to a fan suffering from anxiety and depression warrants a moment in the spotlight. He says to the fan that after many years supporting Barnsley Football Club, it’s only right and proper that the club responds by supporting him.
He even says: “My door is always open.”
It’s a reminder that in the endless sea of bad news and awfulness, there are some genuinely nice people out there.
RBS
SOME excellent news.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has been told by watchdogs it must put up posters in all its branches saying it’s come stone-dead last in a big survey on customer satisfaction.
Hopefully there will also be notices saying verbal abuse of staff will be tolerated.
Maggie said it first
TORY has-been Michael Howard tells us this week Mrs Thatcher was the first person to warn about the dangers of man-made global warming, 30 years ago.
He’s dead right. She did. She invented it to score a few points against the miners and their leader, the fossil fuel burner-in-chief Arthur Scargill.
It started out as a political argument. And nothing’s changed.
Hot on pepper
IF you’d asked me last week where black peppercorns come from, I’d have said “the supermarket”.
Well, I do know now – because while taking a break from pushing my bicycle around Sri Lanka last week, I found them growing in little strings from a tree.
I felt a bit stupid . . . until I learned that in America, seven per cent of adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows.