The Zimmers – you’ve been framed?

I am gratified to see that there has been a world-wide response to The Zimmers releasing a single which is a re-worked version  of The Who’s My Generation. The Zimmers were featured in the final programme of the recent BBC three-part series Power to the People highlighting the isolation of old people who feel marginalised by society. Any publicity drawing attention to this blot on our national landscape can only be a good thing but I seriously question whether The Zimmers will achieve what they set out to do – or exactly the opposite.

 The combined age of the 40 members of the band is 3000, with the lead singer, Alf, a wel-preserved 90. However, if I am brutally honest, watching them perform made me cringe. Old people singing Who songs are simply not cool; if anything their rather contrived rendition of this classic rock song reinforces stereotypes. I’m all for breaking down age barriers and taboos but, realistically, there are limits. Growing old disgracefully is something to be encouraged but am I the only one feeling more than a little uneasy about The Zimmers?

Don’t let Saga get away with it

I hesitate to admit to schadenfreude but there was certainly a degree of smugness when I read that Saga are facing a possible disaster because of government legislation against what might be termed ‘reverse discrimination’. Saga have been offering cruises and coach tours exclusively for the over-50s for years but legislation banning all discrimination in the provision of good and services – including on the grounds of age – means the company might have to open its doors to all comers thus allowing young people access to their ’silver tours’.

 Saga was originally told that the law would require them to offer all cruises, resort and touring holidays and numerous financial products to everyone irrespective of age. They have responded by claiming that their brand name would be jeoparidised and their business could collapse if trendy young things are allowed to ’pollute’ the sedate and rarified ambience of their traditional activities. The government have since hinted that they might be prepared to compromise to help Saga out of a potentially deep hole. But why should Saga receive special treatment? If they can get away with what is quite simply an ageist policy why shouldn’t others? To allow Saga to circumvent the legislation would make a mockery of everything the anti-ageism laws are supposed to stand for. Saga should sink or swim along with the rest.

Like John Wayne with piles

What has two wheels, moves like John Wayne with piles, is dripping wet and covered from head to foot in mud? Yours truly after completing 32 miles on my bike in yesterday’s Thames Bridges ride in aid of the Stroke Association. Yet, despite having cursed every yard of the way as rain fell incessantly like stair-rods and winding up bedgraggled, barely able to walk and with a very sore bum, my outward appearance did not match what I was feeling inside.

My sense of elation at having completed this marathon in conditions even Sir Ranulph Fiennes would have baulked at was quite extraordinary. I felt like a hero, fulling deserving of the medal I was presented with at the end, and ready to take on whatever life could throw at me. To push yourself to the limits and beyond is truly gratifying in a way that cannot be explained unless you have done it. What was particularly pleasing was the fact that I was able to ride shoulder to shoulder with much younger folk and in some cases leave them in my wake. What next, you may ask? I wonder if Ranulph needs a PA?

Ball park figure

The bitter taste of revenge came swiftly to me after posting a recent blog about a friend of a certain age being offered a seat on the bus by a young woman. When the death of Alan Ball was announced this week at the age of 61 my friend took great pleasure in bating me about the fact that I am the same vintage as England’s 1966 World Cup hero. This untimely poke in the ribs stung momentarily but I quickly reminded myself that age really is all in the mind and fixating on a number is pointless – unless you are a mathematician.

The Italians apparently have a saying ‘The old will die; the young can die’, which highlights the fact that life and death are two sides of the same coin. The reality is that we could be knocked down by a number 27 bus, fall down a manhole, get bitten by a Black Widow or poleaxed by a coronary at any time but that’s something we can’t control so why worry about it? As far as I’m concerned, the fact that Alan B popped his clogs at 61 has no more relevance to me than a game of bingo. When my number’s up it’s up – but in the meantime I’m not going to waste time checking my card every five minutes.

Live it to the max!

Having been thoroughly irritated by an article penned by Brian Appleyard in the Sunday Times magazine a couple of weeks ago, which slated baby-boomers for ’seeking the fountain of youth with increasingly desperate enthusiasm’, I was contrastingly buoyed by a piece in The Times today headlined ‘Why 50somethings live like 20somethings’.  The Times article revealed that boomers are basically having a whale of a time in a whole variety of ways and are as fit and fulfilled – if not more so – as those in their twenties were during the 1950s.

Some people just don’t get it, do they? The whole point about the new breed of  fit and feisty older people is not that they are in denial of death; rather that they don’t want to give up and sit there waiting for The Grim Reaper like their parents and grandparents. What is wrong with wanting to make the most of your alloted span and, if possible, extend it?Anyone who thinks otherwise simply does not appreciate life for the wonderful gift that it is.