OLDER

“Nothing punctures a middle aged man’s vanity like a young woman unlocking the toilet for him on a Saturday morning, thankyou”

Having burst from slumber with the frantic gasp of a cross-channel swimmer with life-threatening cramps, he inspected his watch. 6.30am. Eight solid hours of sleep. Cause for celebration. And celebration these days is less *go see a band, get drunk, get f***ed up, hit a club or a party and wake up in a squat between strange bodies* and more get a coffee and a gentle walk on the Heath.

Welcome to late middle age. Where once you would have put anything - animal, mineral or vegetable - in your body, even if, especially if, it was still breathing, but where now you carefully consider if it is really wise to eat bread, pastry, anything.

Where once you would have formed a band, got recording time off a major label, gone to Scotland, split the band, couch surfed Edinburgh festival, had a romance in Italy, and set fire to the property it was your job to look after , all in the space of a month , but where now you wonder if you can get your gutter fixed this side of Christmas

Where once you had such certainties but now you can make no real sense of the world and the only thing you’re sure of is death and taxes and you no longer want to school everyone young and feisty but instead tell them it’s all a big joke and in the end none of it will matter, it will be ok. It will all be ok.

Where you eye up overpriced clothing that will showcase how you’ve Still Got It. Except “it” is male pattern baldness, indigestion and eight chins

Where all the punks you knew are either dead, long-term drug casualties shouting at buildings, or as ridiculous and bourgeois as you, terrorising the neighbourhood by playing Barry Manilow too loud in the car and punching the air as you sing along “looks like we made it!”

You are Alan Partridge. You are Prufrock. You measure your days in coffee spoons and bowel movements. You are ridiculous. And you are still alive. You did actually make it.

And It’s great