Time Marches On

Of course, having a birthday coming up hasn't helped my creativity, either. (See how I seamlessly carried on from the previous post, readers? Neat, huh?) Not that there's anything wrong with getting older, of course. Particularly in view of the alternative. The peculiar thing about ageing is that you never feel that different on the inside - it's just the outside which gets old and decrepit. And that's the problem - we judge each other on appearances so much. We see someone with, say, grey hair, and we immediately make a whole load of assumptions as to what they do, what music they listen to, what they watch on TV and what their attitudes might be - all based upon socially-determined preconceptions about age. If you are over forty you can't listen to chart music, for instance. Indeed, only this week we had the BBC Trust chastising Radio Two for attracting too many 'young' listeners. How dare they listen to music society says they have to be middle aged to enjoy? Really, isn't it a bit pathetic to try and differentiate radio stations purely on the basis of an age demographic? Shouldn't they be differentiated by the type of music and programming they carry?

Anyway, getting back to the point, whilst I agree that there's nothing worse than would be trendy forty-somethings who try to be 'down with the kids', I find myself increasingly frustrated by social expectations of how I should be behaving baaed upon my age. Why shouldn't I be allowed to listen to music recorded after 1984? Why shouldn't I still be producing an irreverent would be 'satirical' web site? Why shouldn't I still be happily single? That said, I do find myself increasingly befuddled by some aspects of modern culture. I mean, Dizzee Rascal, what's that all about, eh? Don't get me wrong, he seems a nice enough bloke, but his music is just shit. Yet everyone says he's a musical genius. I also increasingly find myself wondering "If I do or say this, will it make me look like a dirty old man?" - you'd be surprised how often I decide it will, so I just keep my mouth shut. It's a rule I even find myself applying in private - if I watch Skins on E4, for example, I find myself feeling like a peado. It's a sobering thought to realise that you are old enough to be the grandfather of most of the cast.