Millennial exceptionalism: how to rewrite history

One of the things I don’t understand about the modern world is the tendency for young(er) people to adopt labels. To me, that’s like letting other people describe you, and limiting aspects of your individuality.

And when people use a label that’s based only on the year they were born, that’s just weird. Generation theory is pretty rubbish when it’s used by marketing types; when it’s embraced by the people it describes that’s pointless.

Book review: The Invisible Woman – Taking on the Vintage Years

“Middle age is not the problem – how we think about it is”.
There’s this weird thing that happens when you’re on Twitter. You follow someone because it looks as if you’ve got things in common, maybe even chat now and again, and then you find out they’re someone. Which, in my world, means they write for a proper newspaper or have a book out (both of which I aspire to).
The Invisible Woman felt like a friend before I realised she had a Guardian column (The Vintage Years) and she feels even more like one now that I’ve read her book.

Barriers to employment? Just ask the over-50s

I read a depressing document this week. PRIME (the people I did a business start-up course with last year) have put out a report called 'The missing million: illuminating the employment challenges of the over 50s'. That 'million' is the number of people over 50 they estimate to have been made ‘involuntarily workless’.

It's good that someone's raising the issue, but as Helen Walmsley-Johnson points out in a Gransnet post, they're not the first and they won't be the last and it's not worth much unless something changes.

Written by a demographic think-tank called the International Longevity Centre, this is the first of three reports looking at 'the economic barriers facing the over 50s'. Don't get me wrong, I am pleased that they are campaigning about this. But I don't think the message is a helpful one.

When did you ever see ‘wisdom’ on a job description?

This time next week I will be unemployed, or workless as our politicians like to say. It’ll be the second time this year I have left a job and both times I was glad to do so. The first time was redundancy after several years in the same place, some good, some bad, so I left with mixed feelings. It felt very much like a divorce. The job I’ve been doing for the last six months was only ever supposed to be temporary. It feels like the rebound relationship that you know all along is not going to last.

Enterprise, energy and anger

Two months ago I started a course called Preparing to Run Your Own Business. Or, as I like to tell it, ‘I’m doing a business start-up course’. Because start-ups are hip (hey, they’re what young people do), and being trained to be a ‘senior entrepreneur’ is not.

What are you going to do when you grow up?

I blogged a while ago on good things about being over 50.  I recently found another one.

Everyone's heard of the Prince's Trust. Hardly anyone's heard of the Prince's Initiative, aka the Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise aka PRIME. Yes, I think it's one of those things where they chose the acronym first and then worked backwards.

Fifty-plus? Recognize yourself? Thought not.

I saw this poster in a local shop window. It said:

“Autumn Leaves 50+

Our object is to provide entertainment and social activities for older members of the local community and is now open to all over-50's. We hold monthly Bingo sessions and have coach trips most months of the year as well as Summer Tea and Christmas lunch. New members are always welcome.”

Just kill me now.

All the cool bands

Sometimes you actually find something useful on Facebook. One of my friends 'shared' a photo that's been 'shared' about 3,000 times and I couldn't resist doing the same. It's what they call viral marketing, but as far as I can see it's on a real person's Facebook page and it isn't advertising anything.

The photo is just some text and says this: 'I may be old, but I got to see all the cool bands.'

It's obviously struck a chord with people of a certain age. And why not? I know how to make a young person jealous really easily. You just say you saw the Ramones and Talking Heads on the same bill. And it cost 50p.

50 is the new 70

Down the road from my house there's a billboard advertising sheltered housing. 'Independent Living For The Over 55s' it says, alongside a photo of a smiling, middle-class 55-year-old woman and an almost identical smiling, middle-class 85-year-old woman. It's not clear which one of them is plotting to put the other one away.

Don't call me a silver surfer

It's official. The golden generation previously known as 'digital natives' no longer exists.

Researchers at the Open University have decided that there is no generational difference between how people use the internet. It's more about learning styles or something. (I think this is just an academic take on 'you're as old as you feel'.)

Thank goodness for that.

Me and Mrs Jones

Today, I am a happy person. I am officially NOT a baby boomer.

Apparently, the Americans have invented something called Generation Jones that sits between the boomers and Generation X: exactly where I am.

Don’t call me a baby boomer

Newsnight ran a slightly pointless ‘generation gap’ feature this week blaming baby boomers for the current woes of young people.

Don’t blame me. I voted for Michael Foot. I believed there was such a thing as society. I worried about my carbon footprint before it got fashionable.

But what I find really offensive is the suggestion that because of when I was born I had a charmed ‘never had it so good’ life. No: it's because of when I was born that I missed out on all that.

I'm not a number IV

I’ve had an invitation from Saga to take out insurance. Just to make the invitation more enticing, they offer a ‘free mini Sudoku game’ when you phone for a quote.

Is this their idea of how the over 50s spend their leisure time?

As far as I’m concerned, this definitely falls into the category of ‘life’s too short’.

I'm not a number III

“Boden, it seems, will not rest until I have given in and bought into their lifestyle” says Clare at It’s not just me… is it?

I know the feeling. After years of being on their mailing list I recently bought my first Boden garment. It wasn’t quite like buying my first pair of Doc Martens at the age of 40. In fact I felt like a class traitor. But I couldn’t resist the retro rose print. And I am now at an age (and shape) where the words ‘semi-fitted’ are the holy grail of fashion.

But that doesn’t mean I am going to buy their lifestyle. Or their marketing messages, despite all the chummy emails from Johnny Boden. This man went to school with David Cameron and the man who writes Purple Ronnie. (What is it with old Etonians and twee?) These people are not your friends. They are actors.

I'm not a number II

One of my Facebook friends recently commented "I refuse to be in the core demographic for ‘The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency’"... Personally, I refuse to be in the core demographic for anything.

It’s easy to get sucked into watching what I call SAGA telly: anything with nice scenery and people in anoraks and vintage cars. Yes, I like the British landscape and I own walking boots and a bicycle. But that’s not all there is. It doesn’t mean anyone knows who I am. Or what I want to hear.

Last Sunday I found Partner listening to Johnnie Walker presenting ‘Sounds of the 70s’. On Radio 2. In the 70s we listened to Johnnie Walker on Radio 1. Hard to believe now but at the time we thought he was pretty hip. On the basis, as I remember, that he played Album Tracks. In the daytime. These days, well for a good few years now, I’ve just thought he was pompous and pointless. A bit like Bob Harris (but then, Harris always was).

The only DJ from that time who was always cool, and always will be, was John Peel. That’s not to do with the fact he’s dead. It’s to do with the fact that he followed his own path, regardless either of fashion or of what people his age were supposed to do and like. Which is, basically, the Older than Elvis definition of cool.

So, ‘Sounds of the 70s’ is on the radio station that used to have ‘Sounds of the 60s’. (How long before it’s ‘Sounds of the 80s’?) There’s a fundamental flaw in this. There was no such thing as the 70s. It makes no sense to play an early 70s Stephen Stills song next to... well, something good. Or something from the other end of the decade.

From 1970 to 1979 there were several, very different, eras. From where I was, there were the Jackie years, the cheesecloth years, and the punk years... Shortly before the end of society as we know it. The problem with the concept of 'Sounds of the 70s' is, there’s no context. It makes more sense to listen to one of the ‘Top of the Pops’ LPs that we’ve been collecting from charity shops. This way you actually get a genuine snapshot of what was genuinely happening at a specific moment. Minus the hindsight and minus the value judgements: they include songs you’d forgotten about and songs you will never hear on the radio because they haven't been classified a ‘classic’. The concept of ‘golden oldies’ is for people who don’t really like music. Or who don’t have a memory of their own. Count me out.

Talking ’bout my generation

Finally someone has acknowledged what I always knew. I am part of the lost generation.

‘As in the 1980s recession, another generation is at risk of being washed up, never being connected to working life,’ writes Polly Toynbee in the Guardian, showing rather more sympathy to Generation Y than I can find myself. They’ve had it too good too long: we never had that chance. I just want to shout: what about us?

Somewhere invisible between the baby boomers and Generation X, we don’t even have a name. If the current lot are Generation Y, we must be Generation What.

We were on the receiving end of the Thatcherite recessions as we started out working life. And now we’re on the receiving end of the 21st century recession as we anticipate the end of our working life. Except it probably never will end, because we can’t afford to retire.

We were the ones who couldn’t get on the career ladder because hundreds of jobs were being lost every day. Who couldn’t get on the housing ladder because we didn’t have steady jobs. Who, in many cases, never even had the chance to think about a pension - and if we do have one, are likely to watch it disappear to nothing.

And we were the ones disenfranchised because as soon as we were old enough to vote, the wrong party kept getting in. For eighteen years.

I went proudly to university, one of the ten per cent they let in at the time; the first of my family to do it. I left with a 2.2 that’s now worth nothing because a 2.1 is the default setting for 50 per cent of the population. I spent the first few years of what should have been my working life signing on, re-training and on a job creation scheme.

I was one of the lucky ones. There are people my age who have never had a proper job. After I found my feet, I managed to find work. I’ve always been skint, but I’ve never been destitute.

But life has always felt precarious. Once, I imagined spending my twilight years in a nice retirement home, playing the Sex Pistols at full volume. (If it’s too loud, you’re too old. And if it’s not loud enough, you’re so old you’ve gone deaf.) Now, it doesn’t seem so likely… what was that line about ‘no future’?

Am I a ‘grumpy old woman’? No. Am I an angry middle-aged woman? Bloody right I am.

I'm not a number

Is it just me, or does every website in the world carry a Google Ad telling readers how to lose weight? Facebook’s tendency to typecast is becoming particularly sinister. It knows how old I am, and every time I log in I find it inviting me to buy a new boiler or to lose ten pounds. Funnily enough, I have done both of these things this year already.

I fought the lawn (and the lawn won)

I always thought that when I got to a certain age I would stop wearing T shirts with writing on. OK, I still have a few band T shirts that I wear to do the gardening, but it wouldn’t really be dignified to be seen wearing them in public.

But I was quite tempted when I spotted this on holiday (courtesy of jivingjellyfish). It sums up a lot really... not least, my despair at the state of my garden.

PS I am the proud owner of ‘I fought the law’ by the Clash AND the Bobby Fuller Four. Does that make me cool, or just a bit of a saddo?

I am a cliché

At lunchtime today, some of my colleagues had a barbeque. Some of them got in the car and went to the pub. Some of them stayed at their desks and on Facebook.

I cycled to the shops and bought some fairtrade bananas.

No wonder they laugh at me.

Here comes the summer

Summer arrived suddenly on Tuesday. The same day as the man who came to install our new boiler. Sadly, I was more excited about the boiler. Must be a sign of age. Finally I will be energy efficient. Finally I will be warm in winter. I feel as if someone has given me a present. Unfortunately, I had to pay for it.