My name is Paul and I’m a fashion victim.
I don’t mean I’m a victim of fashion like, say, David Beckham who wears clothes only once, or his wife who slavishly follows the latest designers and spends a fortune to look like mutton dressed as, well, mutton. No, I’m a fashion victim in the way that a hit and run patient is a traffic victim. Like the virgin Queen Elizabeth the First, I just don’t get it.
I’m sure it wasn’t always this way. I think we all must reach a certain age when any clothes at all just look wrong on us as we head for the flat cap and anorak phase of our lives. Perhaps there should be a law that states everyone over forty must walk around naked although, in my case, I fear people would assume I’d gone for the crumpled linen look.
Take that forty something sex symbol Tom Cruise for example. This week I spotted him at an awards thing dressed in a grey double breasted suit with a blue V neck pullover and shirt and tie underneath. What was he thinking? Even my granddad wouldn’t wear a pullover with a suit - especially not now that he’s passed away. You could say he wouldn’t be seen dead in it.
But I’m no longer sure of my critical faculties. Perhaps Tom’s at the cutting edge and this is a new look we’ll be going for in six months. I draw the line, however, at the shoes. Lifts are for high rise buildings.
My kids constantly tell me that shirts have to be worn outside the trousers, but does that include with a suit? They tell me that my Timberland boots (or my Yellow Shoes as they call them) are old fashioned and look like Billy Connolly’s banana shoes which are now stored in a museum somewhere. And as for the smooth leather biker’s jacket I bought in New York, I’ve been allowed to wear it just once – to a fancy dress party.
Perhaps then there’s a chance that I’m not a fashion victim after all but a victim of women bullying me in to what to wear. I don’t remember Tom Cruise looking like a media studies teacher before he married so this is a recent development and my theory is that men are fine till women get their hands on them.
When I was single, fashion was never a problem and I wore whatever I wanted. Granted there may have been a few mistakes, and the white bomber jacket with blue criss crossed lacing across the front may have been ahead of its time (a time that, admittedly, hasn’t yet come) and the tight cheesecloth shirt with a tie dyed collar was an acquired taste, but generally I think I got it more right than wrong.
And then came along the great opinionated stylist that every marriage provides you with free of charge. It started with me being warned that under no circumstances was I to turn up scruffy for the wedding or stand at the altar in a luminous coloured suit. My compromise, or bit of rebellion, was to wear a sober, full dress kilt outfit but with outrageous multi coloured silk underwear underneath. I still sweat when I remember the embarrassment of stealing those knickers from my busty neighbour's wash line!
Since then I’ve been more lager lout than Lagerfeld. I’ve fought and tried to resist all hints and bullying from my wife about what colours suit me and what styles are best to disguise a beer belly, so now I have no opinions of my own. Often I’ll buy stuff just to annoy her, the latest being a beenie hat I purchased last weekend which has now, mysteriously, disappeared. I’ve based my fashion sense for so long on being contrary that I now no longer know what’s right or thong.
Perhaps I need a stylist. One of the great things about hosting TV shows is that someone else picks your clothes for you. No stress, no worries. Except, I once had a stylist at Sky TV who, mysteriously, kept misplacing my clothes only for them to reappear the following week. I finally discovered she had been taking them home to her husband each weekend so he could look good on the Hampstead dinner party circuit. The words Dry and Cleaning had never entered her vocabulary and the deposited matter would have made for a particularly difficult final year forensic exam.
Unless you’ve had to do it you can’t possibly understand, but I urge you to try wearing trousers that another bloke has been wearing before you. Even a full Turkish bath with two hairy all in wrestlers lashing the grime out of you as they beat you with wet towels won’t make you feel clean. Excited perhaps, but not clean.
So what am I to do? Listen to my wife and kids or ignore them and do what I did as a single bloke? It’s not as if I’m allowed to reciprocate and offer advice in return. Unless every new outfit my wife buys is greeted by me doing summersaults with whoops of joy and shouting that it’s just perfect, I’m in the dog house. It’s not fair but I guess it’s repeated in every home across the land.
I’ll have to live with it and admit defeat in the fashion stakes. From now on, when it comes to clothing, I’ll have to learn to look up to my wife. After all, Tom Cruise looks up to his wife doesn’t he?
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Half Term, Half Witted
It’s the middle of February and the Northern Rock story means economics man Evan Davis on BBC news each day looking more and more like an effeminate Tintin. It can only be weeks till he abandons Captain Haddock and joins a Village People tribute band, though I worry he may be a bit too camp.
So, time to switch off and head somewhere with no telly to celebrate the pagan festival of half term.
For those without kids, this week off from school is supposed to be a break for the little people but turns in to a nightmare for the parents as we get pestered for weeks that “Tamsin’s going skiing for half term” or “Zach’s off to the Caribbean” or, if you live near us, “Tristram and Isolde are setting up a vegan collective at their Algarve villa with their mum and dad”. The days of staying home are over. How you spend half term is a statement about how you’re spending your money.
For us it was off to Lake Windermere so we packed the car, safe in the knowledge that cries of “are we there yet” would be avoided thanks to the new DVD video monitors in the back seat. They worked wonderfully, with beautiful, crisp pictures and remote fast forwarding to the good scenes. Next trip I’ll hope to get the sound working too. Thank God I’d brought some detective stories on CD as the thought of six hours playing I Spy would make amputation seem preferable.
One gizmo that did work was our new GPS which guided us there with no problems. I’m not bad at directions but, as Debbie was navigator, we could have ended up in Kowloon rather than Kendal. She’s like Jade Goody who this week told a reporter that she wanted to open a gym in the North of England. “Somewhere like Cornwall”, she said.
Jade Goody – where O levels go when they want to be left alone. Imagine playing I Spy with her. “I spy something beginning with, er, what’s it called again, er, is it Kicking K?”
But I digress. We arrived at a marvellous country house in a place called Graythwaite surrounded by the most eccentric topiary I had ever seen. These hedges looked like a series of giant top hats resting on top of deodorant cans but were, in fact, chess pieces which had preservation orders on them. The owners can knock down the centuries old house, or build an abbatoir with a disco ball on top, but can’t touch the topiary other than to trim it. Such is the quaintness of Cumbria.
We opened our curtains in the morning to see bicycles fly past the window with no cyclists on board. It was surreal for a few minutes till we remembered the road passed by our window and the cycles must have been on top of car roof racks. Cyclists, walkers, mountaineers. They all love the Lake District.
I think it’s because there it’s like stepping back in time, in a nice way. Some car parks operate an honesty box policy where they rely on your sense of fair play to put money in but others, like the University of Cumbria, operate a dual tariff where it’s dearer at weekends but they don’t tell you. They very kindly then leave a present on your windscreen when you return.
The quaintness is amplified when you realise that getting the Sunday papers means a drive for three miles to a lone garage only to find the papers don’t actually arrive till ten o’clock. Television and radio reception is bad enough to have made John Logie Baird and Marconi give up and take to repairing kettles so bad news just doesn’t figure here, and I was beginning to see why everyone was relaxed and chilled. Literally. The temperature each morning was so cold the topiary turned white and I turned blue.
Whilst I scraped windscreens, the kids picked eggs from the yard and it would have been rude to refuse the full fry up breakfast which was the best meal of the day. We ate at a lakeside hotel where they’ve just found out that JFK has been assassinated and the new fad is something called nouvelle cuisine which has just arrived on the stage coach. Little plates with zig zags of juice separating a cuckoo spit of potato from a splinter of meat that someone had obviously flossed from their teeth made me think I’d just been given a dirty plate. I ordered bread and butter pudding and I could have sold it as art at Christies. Unfortunately I wanted to eat it. I lost it under my pinky nail and couldn’t find it again.
And there lies the problem for me. I could come to love the lack of contact with the outside world, would relish news of the Beatles splitting up reaching me sometime next month, and the freezing cold and treacherous roads wouldn’t bother me. But I need my food. Still, it beats the Portuguese vegan collective hands down. As Evan Davis might say, bigger portions please.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I received a few calls over the weekend offering commiserations and asking if there was anything friends could do for my family. If you want to know why go to http://www.allmediascotland.com/articles/2310/18022008/coia_case_of_mistaken_identity
So, time to switch off and head somewhere with no telly to celebrate the pagan festival of half term.
For those without kids, this week off from school is supposed to be a break for the little people but turns in to a nightmare for the parents as we get pestered for weeks that “Tamsin’s going skiing for half term” or “Zach’s off to the Caribbean” or, if you live near us, “Tristram and Isolde are setting up a vegan collective at their Algarve villa with their mum and dad”. The days of staying home are over. How you spend half term is a statement about how you’re spending your money.
For us it was off to Lake Windermere so we packed the car, safe in the knowledge that cries of “are we there yet” would be avoided thanks to the new DVD video monitors in the back seat. They worked wonderfully, with beautiful, crisp pictures and remote fast forwarding to the good scenes. Next trip I’ll hope to get the sound working too. Thank God I’d brought some detective stories on CD as the thought of six hours playing I Spy would make amputation seem preferable.
One gizmo that did work was our new GPS which guided us there with no problems. I’m not bad at directions but, as Debbie was navigator, we could have ended up in Kowloon rather than Kendal. She’s like Jade Goody who this week told a reporter that she wanted to open a gym in the North of England. “Somewhere like Cornwall”, she said.
Jade Goody – where O levels go when they want to be left alone. Imagine playing I Spy with her. “I spy something beginning with, er, what’s it called again, er, is it Kicking K?”
But I digress. We arrived at a marvellous country house in a place called Graythwaite surrounded by the most eccentric topiary I had ever seen. These hedges looked like a series of giant top hats resting on top of deodorant cans but were, in fact, chess pieces which had preservation orders on them. The owners can knock down the centuries old house, or build an abbatoir with a disco ball on top, but can’t touch the topiary other than to trim it. Such is the quaintness of Cumbria.
We opened our curtains in the morning to see bicycles fly past the window with no cyclists on board. It was surreal for a few minutes till we remembered the road passed by our window and the cycles must have been on top of car roof racks. Cyclists, walkers, mountaineers. They all love the Lake District.
I think it’s because there it’s like stepping back in time, in a nice way. Some car parks operate an honesty box policy where they rely on your sense of fair play to put money in but others, like the University of Cumbria, operate a dual tariff where it’s dearer at weekends but they don’t tell you. They very kindly then leave a present on your windscreen when you return.
The quaintness is amplified when you realise that getting the Sunday papers means a drive for three miles to a lone garage only to find the papers don’t actually arrive till ten o’clock. Television and radio reception is bad enough to have made John Logie Baird and Marconi give up and take to repairing kettles so bad news just doesn’t figure here, and I was beginning to see why everyone was relaxed and chilled. Literally. The temperature each morning was so cold the topiary turned white and I turned blue.
Whilst I scraped windscreens, the kids picked eggs from the yard and it would have been rude to refuse the full fry up breakfast which was the best meal of the day. We ate at a lakeside hotel where they’ve just found out that JFK has been assassinated and the new fad is something called nouvelle cuisine which has just arrived on the stage coach. Little plates with zig zags of juice separating a cuckoo spit of potato from a splinter of meat that someone had obviously flossed from their teeth made me think I’d just been given a dirty plate. I ordered bread and butter pudding and I could have sold it as art at Christies. Unfortunately I wanted to eat it. I lost it under my pinky nail and couldn’t find it again.
And there lies the problem for me. I could come to love the lack of contact with the outside world, would relish news of the Beatles splitting up reaching me sometime next month, and the freezing cold and treacherous roads wouldn’t bother me. But I need my food. Still, it beats the Portuguese vegan collective hands down. As Evan Davis might say, bigger portions please.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I received a few calls over the weekend offering commiserations and asking if there was anything friends could do for my family. If you want to know why go to http://www.allmediascotland.com/articles/2310/18022008/coia_case_of_mistaken_identity
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
I'd Do Anything
I thought I had a great idea for a daily celebrity game show. The loser gets to choose his punishment from two alternatives – being eaten by a crocodile or sleeping with Amy Winehouse. Unfortunately the BBC has turned the format down saying that the crocodile would be full up by Wednesday and stop eating.
That one man vacuum of self doubt, Piers Morgan, this week said “No” to one production company who wanted to make a show in which he would be asked to fake his own death. I must admit I was personally shocked at how far things have come and I simply couldn’t believe it. Piers Morgan turning down a chance to get on a telly programme? Who’d have predicted that?
Although some of Morgan’s detractors will be up in arms that it was only to be a pretend fatality, the company will, no doubt, find some other publicity hungry mug to do their show because the one thing celebs hate more than being hounded is being ignored.
I mentioned recently that my wife and I were sounded out about appearing on the Wife Swap show and that we had declined. Since then the series has started transmission on Channel Four and the “wives” I would have had to invite in to my home so far have involved the lesbian ex model Samantha Fox or the collagen filled, gender confused, Pete Burns. It’s a freak show, yet fading stars and never weres are queueing up to get on it.
In fact they’d do anything. Many years ago an illusionist came to me with an idea for a quiz in which, for each incorrect answer, contestants got an electric shock through their seat building in intensity until, in the final round, they were made unconscious. I told him it was too dangerous and no one would volunteer to take part but, looking back, how stupid was I? If they weren’t already committed to I’m A Celebrity or Wife Swap they’d be signing up quicker than you can say Christine Hamilton.
It was in a Simpsons episode that a wise TV host (voiced by Star Trek’s George Takei) explained the Far East and celebrity love of TV humiliation. Homer’s family had won a trip to Japan in a quiz and, as the reasons for the cruelty in Japanese game shows were listed, Takei explained the tacky. “You reward knowledge, but we punish ignorance”.
And as a breed there are few more ignorant animals on God’s earth than the greater spotted celebrity - wearing concealer stick of course. It would be a fool who would bet against them signing on for a show where a wrong answer meant they had to select their first born for drowning.
There’s something wonderful about seeing the famous suffer and face deprivation because, deep down, we feel they deserve it. Their cushy, freebie laden, life and huge earnings make them ripe for a fall and I could list many famous faces I’d gladly watch suffer having met them and put up with their ill mannered, self obsessed, rants and demands.
But, here’s a thing. This week, in one afternoon, I met three familiar faces who were simply very normal. I interviewed a member of the Eastenders’ cast, Natalie Cassidy, who could not have been nicer or more down to earth. I then went out for a walk and bumped in to boxer Chris Eubank who was taking time to have his photo taken with a fan and then I met singer Craig David who turned out to be charming, polite, and generous with his time.
I’m thinking, therefore, that we need to protect some of these famous faces from themselves and I propose that it should be a condition of entry to the celebrity reality shows that you have to have a certain quota of people willing to state that you are a narcissistic, evil, unfeeling diva who deserves to die. In other words if you’re nice, you’re not in. Let’s make these shows only for the unpopular.
The downside is we’ll have wall to wall former Big Brother saddos and ex pop stars but, when they fall apart, get injured, go bankrupt or curl up with embarrassment, we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Then if Pete Burns comes in to my house, it will be to fix my telly, not appear on it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to know if your favourite celebrity is hot or not? Here’s a way to find out. Nip down to your local Woolworths and have a look at the unsold, discounted, celebrity calendars left over from Christmas. Currently in my local shop for 69 pence you can get your hands on any one of the hundreds of Jonathon Ross calendars collecting dust.
He’s a nice bloke, I’m sure, but if I wanted a dodgy haircut and suspect fashion leering at me from my office wall I’d frame one of my old Eighties publicity photos.
That one man vacuum of self doubt, Piers Morgan, this week said “No” to one production company who wanted to make a show in which he would be asked to fake his own death. I must admit I was personally shocked at how far things have come and I simply couldn’t believe it. Piers Morgan turning down a chance to get on a telly programme? Who’d have predicted that?
Although some of Morgan’s detractors will be up in arms that it was only to be a pretend fatality, the company will, no doubt, find some other publicity hungry mug to do their show because the one thing celebs hate more than being hounded is being ignored.
I mentioned recently that my wife and I were sounded out about appearing on the Wife Swap show and that we had declined. Since then the series has started transmission on Channel Four and the “wives” I would have had to invite in to my home so far have involved the lesbian ex model Samantha Fox or the collagen filled, gender confused, Pete Burns. It’s a freak show, yet fading stars and never weres are queueing up to get on it.
In fact they’d do anything. Many years ago an illusionist came to me with an idea for a quiz in which, for each incorrect answer, contestants got an electric shock through their seat building in intensity until, in the final round, they were made unconscious. I told him it was too dangerous and no one would volunteer to take part but, looking back, how stupid was I? If they weren’t already committed to I’m A Celebrity or Wife Swap they’d be signing up quicker than you can say Christine Hamilton.
It was in a Simpsons episode that a wise TV host (voiced by Star Trek’s George Takei) explained the Far East and celebrity love of TV humiliation. Homer’s family had won a trip to Japan in a quiz and, as the reasons for the cruelty in Japanese game shows were listed, Takei explained the tacky. “You reward knowledge, but we punish ignorance”.
And as a breed there are few more ignorant animals on God’s earth than the greater spotted celebrity - wearing concealer stick of course. It would be a fool who would bet against them signing on for a show where a wrong answer meant they had to select their first born for drowning.
There’s something wonderful about seeing the famous suffer and face deprivation because, deep down, we feel they deserve it. Their cushy, freebie laden, life and huge earnings make them ripe for a fall and I could list many famous faces I’d gladly watch suffer having met them and put up with their ill mannered, self obsessed, rants and demands.
But, here’s a thing. This week, in one afternoon, I met three familiar faces who were simply very normal. I interviewed a member of the Eastenders’ cast, Natalie Cassidy, who could not have been nicer or more down to earth. I then went out for a walk and bumped in to boxer Chris Eubank who was taking time to have his photo taken with a fan and then I met singer Craig David who turned out to be charming, polite, and generous with his time.
I’m thinking, therefore, that we need to protect some of these famous faces from themselves and I propose that it should be a condition of entry to the celebrity reality shows that you have to have a certain quota of people willing to state that you are a narcissistic, evil, unfeeling diva who deserves to die. In other words if you’re nice, you’re not in. Let’s make these shows only for the unpopular.
The downside is we’ll have wall to wall former Big Brother saddos and ex pop stars but, when they fall apart, get injured, go bankrupt or curl up with embarrassment, we can congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Then if Pete Burns comes in to my house, it will be to fix my telly, not appear on it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to know if your favourite celebrity is hot or not? Here’s a way to find out. Nip down to your local Woolworths and have a look at the unsold, discounted, celebrity calendars left over from Christmas. Currently in my local shop for 69 pence you can get your hands on any one of the hundreds of Jonathon Ross calendars collecting dust.
He’s a nice bloke, I’m sure, but if I wanted a dodgy haircut and suspect fashion leering at me from my office wall I’d frame one of my old Eighties publicity photos.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Older, Wiser, Fitter
This week I’ve become fixated with old age, the years when people will turn up to my birthday candle blow outs in firefighter costumes and the usual Hip Hooray will change to Hip Replacement. I know I’ll soon appreciate reading glasses more than beer glasses, get confused between prostrate and prostate, and be so keen on female company that The Spice Girls will start to seem fanciable.
Alright, so the latter is never going to happen and if it did it would have more to do with cataracts than anything else, but it can’t be long till Sporty Spice changes her name to Gently Exercising Spice, Ginger to Blue Rinse, Scary to Embarrassing Auntie and, with the others, get their bus passes whilst Posh invites Hello magazine to photograph her bunion operations and laments how the Girls’ popularity dropped quicker than her boobs.
The Spices have cut short their world tour citing family reasons, but I think it’s more to do with having too many late nights on tour and missing their Horlicks. The girls have stockpiled money for their old age and I wish them the best of luck when they get there as there will be precious few other benefits. I have come to the simple conclusion that the older you get, the older you get. There’s nothing else.
Forget the propaganda of Wiser, or More Comfortable, or Wealthier. Each day simply means another twenty four hours nearer the kind lady in the nursing home mashing up your dinner or helping you look for your teeth.
Many couples who are friends of ours have reached that stage of life where they are suddenly turning in to decrepit versions of the toy Daleks in Woolworths, those remote controlled models that are pre programmed with just five phrases. They repeat the same words to each other over and over again - I Loathe You, I Hate You, It’s Off, I’m Leaving, and I’m Back Again and it’s self evidently ironic that the older we get, the more childish and immature we seem to become. It is then a short leap to dribbling and filling our nappies.
Personally, I have no problem in admitting that I am 32 years old. I have no problem with that because it’s not true, but I do have a problem in recently feeling bound for the scrap heap. What has brought this to a head is that I have been told by a doctor to stop running.
Following pains in my knees after doing heavy, competitive running classes three times a week, my specialist looked at the MRI photos with a smile and told me I’m part of the gym bunny generation he’s seeing every day – those idiots who have devoted their spare time to running machines and weights and have, consequently, knackered their bodies.
My shock absorbers have gone and I’m failing fast. I’m told by the Sports Injury specialist that if I don’t give up running now my racehorse chassis will move from thoroughbred to donkey and I’ll end my days ground in to glue and dog food at the local abattoir.
I guess I should feel lucky as I am still allowed to do other exercise like rowing or swimming, but these have always seemed to me to be a bit pansy compared to running, football or rugby. However, some of my gym generation pals are not so fortunate. One of my 5-a-side football mates, Mike, has had to give up all fitness because he has had a hip replacement – at the age of forty two. Another pal who had an operation two weeks ago will get his hip replaced in Spring. He’s forty four.
So perhaps now you see why I’m fixated with old age this week. The Forty and Fifty Something generation, who were convinced that exercise was the way to a long and healthy old age, may have been right. Our hearts are healthier, our lungs bigger and our circulation better than most. It’s just that we’re going to have to be wheeled around in chairs to show all those things off. I always expected that “Limp” would be a condition I would encounter when I get to my Seventies but I had another part of my anatomy in mind.
So what can I do? I’m going to cheer myself by having a mid life crisis and will get my hair highlighted, buy a Porsche, become friends with Ashley Cole, get sick in cabs, do drugs and join a running club. I may not live for very long, but it’s a better way to go than drowning during a girly swim on my hundredth birthday.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TV presenter Jeremy Beadle, who died last week, was a kind man. I first came across him when he called Radio Clyde and asked to speak to me. He said he’d been driving through Glasgow and had enjoyed my show. I walked ten feet tall for weeks after that.
We met up on a few social and work occasions and were together on a friend’s stag outing to Spain for a few days where he brought a whole suitcase full of practical jokes and gags. In restaurants each night he dropped tin cards that sounded like plates smashing, and it was very entertaining to watch waiters jump out of their skins.
He was a great big kid, which was apt as many, many children are alive today because of his tireless charity work. Unlike most of us he really did make a difference.
Alright, so the latter is never going to happen and if it did it would have more to do with cataracts than anything else, but it can’t be long till Sporty Spice changes her name to Gently Exercising Spice, Ginger to Blue Rinse, Scary to Embarrassing Auntie and, with the others, get their bus passes whilst Posh invites Hello magazine to photograph her bunion operations and laments how the Girls’ popularity dropped quicker than her boobs.
The Spices have cut short their world tour citing family reasons, but I think it’s more to do with having too many late nights on tour and missing their Horlicks. The girls have stockpiled money for their old age and I wish them the best of luck when they get there as there will be precious few other benefits. I have come to the simple conclusion that the older you get, the older you get. There’s nothing else.
Forget the propaganda of Wiser, or More Comfortable, or Wealthier. Each day simply means another twenty four hours nearer the kind lady in the nursing home mashing up your dinner or helping you look for your teeth.
Many couples who are friends of ours have reached that stage of life where they are suddenly turning in to decrepit versions of the toy Daleks in Woolworths, those remote controlled models that are pre programmed with just five phrases. They repeat the same words to each other over and over again - I Loathe You, I Hate You, It’s Off, I’m Leaving, and I’m Back Again and it’s self evidently ironic that the older we get, the more childish and immature we seem to become. It is then a short leap to dribbling and filling our nappies.
Personally, I have no problem in admitting that I am 32 years old. I have no problem with that because it’s not true, but I do have a problem in recently feeling bound for the scrap heap. What has brought this to a head is that I have been told by a doctor to stop running.
Following pains in my knees after doing heavy, competitive running classes three times a week, my specialist looked at the MRI photos with a smile and told me I’m part of the gym bunny generation he’s seeing every day – those idiots who have devoted their spare time to running machines and weights and have, consequently, knackered their bodies.
My shock absorbers have gone and I’m failing fast. I’m told by the Sports Injury specialist that if I don’t give up running now my racehorse chassis will move from thoroughbred to donkey and I’ll end my days ground in to glue and dog food at the local abattoir.
I guess I should feel lucky as I am still allowed to do other exercise like rowing or swimming, but these have always seemed to me to be a bit pansy compared to running, football or rugby. However, some of my gym generation pals are not so fortunate. One of my 5-a-side football mates, Mike, has had to give up all fitness because he has had a hip replacement – at the age of forty two. Another pal who had an operation two weeks ago will get his hip replaced in Spring. He’s forty four.
So perhaps now you see why I’m fixated with old age this week. The Forty and Fifty Something generation, who were convinced that exercise was the way to a long and healthy old age, may have been right. Our hearts are healthier, our lungs bigger and our circulation better than most. It’s just that we’re going to have to be wheeled around in chairs to show all those things off. I always expected that “Limp” would be a condition I would encounter when I get to my Seventies but I had another part of my anatomy in mind.
So what can I do? I’m going to cheer myself by having a mid life crisis and will get my hair highlighted, buy a Porsche, become friends with Ashley Cole, get sick in cabs, do drugs and join a running club. I may not live for very long, but it’s a better way to go than drowning during a girly swim on my hundredth birthday.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TV presenter Jeremy Beadle, who died last week, was a kind man. I first came across him when he called Radio Clyde and asked to speak to me. He said he’d been driving through Glasgow and had enjoyed my show. I walked ten feet tall for weeks after that.
We met up on a few social and work occasions and were together on a friend’s stag outing to Spain for a few days where he brought a whole suitcase full of practical jokes and gags. In restaurants each night he dropped tin cards that sounded like plates smashing, and it was very entertaining to watch waiters jump out of their skins.
He was a great big kid, which was apt as many, many children are alive today because of his tireless charity work. Unlike most of us he really did make a difference.
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