The M word

When I was 50 I found out why couples who’ve been together a long time end up in separate beds. It’s not about falling out of love. It’s not about stopping having sex. It’s about night sweats.

No-one tells you about this stuff. You have to find out for yourself.

Jane Hill has written a great article in Standard Issue magazine (the mag’s worth checking out, by the way), called The Fleece of Despair. (Yeah, we’ve all got one.) And her cry of “Why had nobody told me?” is so true.

Book review: In Your Prime by India Knight

Have you seen those adverts that say they can tell you how not be poor when you retire? Then you read the small print, and the trick is to have £250,000 to start with.

I've just read a book that's a bit like that.

Bring on the New Year. I'm not afraid.

Every year for most of my adult life I've spent New Year's Eve saying: 'Well, I'm glad that's over, let's hope the next one is better.' And 365 days later, there I was again saying 'Well, that was shit, I'm glad it's over.'

I didn't do that this time. In 2014 I was unavoidably closer to 60 than 50, and I don't want to wish my life away any more.

This advert will make you cry. And the last 30 seconds will make you spit with anger.

We are Making a New World (1918) by Paul Nash, war artist. From collection of the Imperial War Museum (available to share for non-commercial use).

I think it might be Children in Need day today. There was someone in a teddy bear suit waving at me when I did the shopping this morning.

Today we all have to feel sad about unfortunate children. On Tuesday, we all had to feel sad about dead soldiers. Next week it will be something else. At the risk of appearing cynical, count me out.

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.