The new rock’n’roll?

‘What did you do at the weekend?’ If I told them, they wouldn’t be impressed. Yes, I spend my spare time gardening. Middle-aged cliche number 1. But give me mud, sun, physical work, the air on my face, and I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in a sweaty club. It’s not that different, really. It’s just a different way of feeling connected.

Things I wish I knew when I was young

Things I wish I knew when I was young #1

Valentine’s Day is a capitalist plot.

Do this instead.

Culture Show

On Saturday night I’m watching the Culture Show, and the Next Big Thing are discussing their experiments with different rhythms and so forth, and I'm thinking: why are you talking about all this as if no-one had ever done it before? Because on Friday night I just happened to be listening to 'Damaged Goods'. The next moment, Lauren Laverne and Mark Kermode are name-checking Gang of Four and I realise I have just happened to become fashionable, by accident. But I still don’t want to listen to Foals, any more than I needed to listen to Franz Ferdinand when it was their turn. And I’m about to start intellectualising about the contradictions inherent in doing an experiment more than once when Mark Kermode says: they’ve got really bad haircuts. Which is, of course, the real reason I can’t take them seriously. A question. Why is it cool when Mark Kermode plays music that could have been made 50 years ago, but not cool when Foals play music that could have been made nearly 30 years ago? a) He has a better haircut. b) I’m just a hypocrite, basically.

Pop on trial

BBC4 has been running a season about pop, most of which I’ve avoided, because I’ve already got the T shirt. I find myself watching ‘1970s pop on trial’. A group of middle-aged men are discussing 70s pop music and how good it was and I’m wondering why there are no middle-aged women there. Punk changed everything, says someone, and I have to agree, because I Was There. On the sofa, my partner (who was playing Thin Lizzy when I was watching the Clash) says ‘oh no it didn’t’. And I think to myself, it’s a good thing I met you when I was grown-up because it would never have worked otherwise. We’d have split up due to musical differences.

Life begins at 44

According to the Guardian, 50 is the new 70. Or something. Stephen Moss’s article ‘It’s official: happiness resumes at 50’ comments on some research that shows you’re going to be the most depressed in your life at the age of 44. After that, apparently, it gets better. Not from here it doesn’t. Maybe it’s different for men. Moss says:

"The first 40 years of life is text, the rest is commentary," wrote Schopenhauer. .. I reached 50 last year, and far from being distressed by that supposedly defining moment, I've never felt better. I now accept that I am deep into my commentary period, and am enjoying it hugely.

Personally, I was pretty happy at 44. It felt good to be a grown-up at last. I would have quite liked to stop the clock then. There’s a lot of difference between being one side of 45 and being the ‘wrong side’. It’s embarrassing, for a start. And after a while, you begin realising that someone’s been stealing your life. It sounds as if Stephen Moss is happy to hand his over. I’m not ready to do that yet. I’m not ready for wisdom if that means accepting things. Because that means giving up. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel ready for that, even at 70.