Life – Page 21 – Middle Age Fanclub

Despite my age, I can’t explain…(the second in an occasional series as I get older and understand less)

A few months ago, in the first of this occasional series of posts, I speculated about the fact that wisdom came with age. Now I’m sure that this is very much the case with some people. Moreover, I have no doubt that all of us get wiser in some aspect, as the years tick by. However, as comforting as that might be, there are still too many things that I can’t really figure out. And I get the impression that this will continue to happen. I mean, I’ve got a blog to write…

I’ll start with an example that I cited early on in my first blog on this subject. I just don’t understand the categorisation of celebrities these days. When I was growing up there seemed to be only the two levels of celebrity; A-List (proper celebrities, big names, superstars of stage and screen, if you like) and everyone else. So you might have *showing his age alert* people like Bruce Forsyth, Michael Parkinson, Cilla Black, Morecombe and Wise, Bob Monkhouse and The Two Ronnies, amongst others in the A-List. Sinatra, Elvis, De Niro, etc would be in the American equivalent. We all knew they were stars. They proved it by drawing audiences of untold millions to whatever they appeared in and besides that, they just looked like and behaved like stars. And then in the everyone else category you had people who, although they didn’t have the elusive star quality of the A-List, had talent. They were good at something and that made them famous. One hit wonders were gone in a second.

‘…the saddest thing of all is that very few of them appear to have a modicum of talent.’

Nowadays this has changed. The goalposts have moved and I just don’t understand. Not only do we have A, B, C and D-List celebrities, we have Z-List ones too! And the saddest thing of all is that very few of them appear to have a modicum of talent. It appears that nowadays you can climb the celebrity ladder and make millions without really having any star quality at all. Sadly this doesn’t seem to stretch to people who write occasional blogs about the type of random garbage that pops into their heads on a daily basis. But I’m not bitter. Honest.

Reality TV ‘stars’, YouTubers, Vloggers, Instagrammers; it’s ridiculous. Most seem to be as thick as mince and in possession of the kind of personality that wouldn’t have got them a conversation, let alone a TV series twenty years ago. I wouldn’t recognise KSI in a KSI identity parade and yet a trip to Google reveals that he has 10.5 million subscribers to his YouTube channel, which has had almost 2 billion views. And what does he do? Commentate on himself playing video games. This. Is. Beyond. My. Comprehension.

But KSI is decidedly small-time. The most popular YouTube ‘star’ is PewDiePie – great name by the way; really showcases your talent – who does the same thing but has had over 39 million subscribers and over 10 billion views. Apparently he shouts a lot. And swears a bit. Talented lad then. Clearly intelligence is becoming a thing of the past.

‘No discernible talent on show, but she’s ‘fabulous’, apparently.’

And then we have the ‘stars’ of Reality TV. People like Gemma Collins, who seems to be more famous for talking about herself than anything. A woman who appears unprofessional at all times. And a woman who describes herself as things like ‘fabulous’ and a ‘diva’. A woman, who, as the old saying goes would eat herself if she were chocolate. If she could fit anymore in, that is. No discernible talent on show, but she’s ‘fabulous’, apparently.

I’m sorry. These people are not for me. I was brought up in an era where celebrities seemed like beings from another planet almost. Now, they’re just famous for being people. And what’s the point in that? I’m meant to be at some sort of wise old (middle) age, but sorry, I just don’t understand.

Closely linked to the current crop of Z-list celebrities is a creature called Cardi B, who the kids seem to dig these days. And yes, that’s right, I did just do a bit of youth-speak back there.

‘Again, no real hard work involved then.’

Cardi – I can’t actually confirm that her stage name is short for cardigan – appears to be some type of singer/rapper. From what I gather she became famous off the back of some videos posted to Instagram. Again, no real hard work involved then. I can’t confess to know too much, as I’ve barely heard a note she’s ever uttered. I find it quite difficult to get past her stupid name. I mean, Cardigan is a ridiculous name, unless you’re actually a piece of knitwear and B is clearly not her real surname. I bet that’s not what it says on her Nectar card.

To my knowledge, the one and only time I’ve encountered Ms B was via a video posted on Twitter. I can’t remember what she was railing against because I was so taken aback at the amount of foul language. Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than capable of a well-timed F-Bomb and not easily offended, especially by words. I’m a mother-flippin’ broad church, guys. I’m from the street. However, as someone who should be some kind of role model to people like my 12-year-old daughter, who worships Cardigan, she did not convey her message well. I have little doubt that her music will be the kind of dirge that seems to be on permanent it-all-sounds-the-same rotation on commercial radio, as well.

Now I realise I’m mere syllables away from sounding like my dad telling me he couldn’t even tell what they’re singing in the 90s, but Cardigan and her peers are a puzzle to me and I don’t really understand what it is they offer to the world. Maybe her siblings Tank-Top and Roll-Neck could explain.

Modern driving is another thing that I can’t get my head around. It would seem that while the test has got more strict, people’s habits when they’re actually driving have just got worse and worse.

‘A golden age of motoring it would seem.’

I learnt to drive in a time when the two broken lines across the end of a road before you got onto another road meant ‘Give Way’. Stop before you pull out and have a look to see if anyone else is coming along the road because if you just pull out, the person who’s already on the road may have to break sharply in order to avoid you. Simpler times. A golden age of motoring it would seem.

I’m also old enough to remember when you had to give way – there’s that alien phrase again – to the traffic coming from the right of you on a roundabout.

It would seem that it’s all changed. Every day on my commute to or from work at least one car will pull out of a junction pretty much right in front of me. And guess what? I’m the one left to break sharply in order to avoid their shocking version of driving. What winds me up even more about this is that the person will then inevitably stay on the road for about 200 yards before turning off onto another street. So their journey is so important that they risked a crash rather than wait a few seconds in order to pull out safely and drive along the road for a tiny distance. I didn’t realise there were so many very important people on their way to perform surgery on the roads in and out of Dewsbury. Who knew it was such a hub of life and death science that no one could afford to just stop for a moment and let a car come past?

Almost as bad are the people who, although they don’t just pull out, insist that they must edge out across the line. The theory seems to be that if they edge out far enough we’ll be duty bound to let them out. Whatever happened to waiting your turn?

‘…everyone wants to be Lewis Hamilton.’

Roundabouts are the same. Full of VIPs tearing around too busy to stop. Or undertaking round a corner because they have to get in front of you. Traffic lights seem to have the same effect. I must watch tens of drivers go through red lights every day. And why? Well who knows, but I imagine that they’re all just very, very important. Perhaps they’re on their way to see Gemma Collins or Cardigan B. Whatever it is, I don’t understand the hurry or the lack of consideration for other people’s safety. My commute is beginning to feel like something out of Mad Max and while I loved the films, I don’t want to live the lifestyle. I think I’m in danger of sounding like a grumpy old man, but then I remind myself that all I’m asking people to do is stop when it says stop and drive like there might be other people about. Instead it seems like everyone wants to be Lewis Hamilton. And Lewis Hamilton’s a tw*t.

Now, I understand the need to suspend reality a little bit every once in a while. I’ve loved the Star Wars films all my life, but I know that none of it’s even remotely real. And I watch The Walking Dead with a genuine fear, despite being safe in the knowledge that zombies don’t exist. So what is my problem with kids’ television then?

I have two children. A girl aged 12 and a boy aged 9. They both watch quite a bit of television and although the oldest is developing a penchant for programmes like Police Interceptors, a lot of what they watch is courtesy of CBBC or Nickelodeon. So they ‘inhabit’ worlds where reality is very much not key to the plot. But herein lies the bit that I just cannot understand.

Firstly, my age-earned wisdom tells me that children live with adults. Social Services are rather fond of this type of family arrangement and besides the formality of it all, it’s just kind of traditional. You know the drill. Boy meets girl, they get all fond of each other, have lots and lots of fun and lots and lots and lots of special cuddles, before they decide to make tiny humans together and then allow said tiny humans to live in their house, despite them inevitably being a massive pain in the arse and almost always the reason why the fun is harder to recover from than ever and the special cuddles slow right down. *And breathe*.

‘…there’s suspending reality and then there’s plain old bollocks.’

Anyway, where was I? Aah, yes. Children who live with adults. So, with the concept of families in mind, can anyone explain to me the phenomena in children’s TV whereby a group of kids seem to live together in an amazing house without the presence of any parents or in fact, any adults whatsoever? I mean there’s suspending reality and then there’s plain old bollocks. One of my kids’ favourites is a show called Gameshakers. I believe the phrase that describes it best is batshit crazy. Not the most literary description, but genuinely the most fitting. Watch it, you’ll see I’m right. What makes Gameshakers so batshit crazy is the concept behind it. Here we have three or four children who appear to be around the age of 10, not only living in some kind of plush apartment together but, wait for it, they also run a hugely successful company that develops games for mobile phones. A reminder; they’re about 10.

And just when Gameshakers was absurd enough for me to find myself in quite the pickle trying to believe it all, whoever makes it threw in another random fact. One of the kids does actually have a dad, who while hardly ever being present in his life, is also a famous (fictional) rapper. Because as we all know, the best rappers hang out with 10-year-olds and develop games for mobile phones in their spare time. Snoopy Dogg Dog is famous for his rapping, but what we don’t all know is that he invented ‘Snake’ for Nokia.

My lack of understanding doesn’t stop there either. In a similarly ridiculous vain we have the shows Jesse and Henry Danger. Jesse, I’ve only just found out, is nanny to three children who also have a butler…but yes, you guessed it, no parents. Now that’s not too difficult to comprehend. Until that is, you take a look at Jesse herself who looks, at most, 18. And then we’re left wondering what set of parents, who have done so well for themselves that they’re never home in their decidedly plush apartment overlooking Central Park, have employed an 18-year-old to be nanny to their three precious kids? And so, predictably, I just don’t understand.

‘It’s clearly the same kid.’

Henry Danger on the other hand simply toes the same line as other shows and films before him. However, it does this in an even more ridiculous fashion. The premise here is that Henry is just a normal kid who happens to also be a superhero. So nothing new there then. Think Superman, for instance. Henry is a high school kid who changes to a superhero when he puts on a red and blue jumpsuit and an eye mask, often appearing in the same place he’d just mysteriously disappeared from moments earlier. And herein lies my problem. It’s clearly the same kid. Literally no one should be fooled. In fact everyone should just be asking, ‘Why’s Henry dressed like that?’ At least Clark Kent had the decency – in a far more innocent age – to take his glasses off.

Despite my age, and at least a small amount of wisdom that I’ve accrued along the way, I just can’t begin to understand kids’ TV and rather than making me laugh with its many fantastical scenarios, it just makes me more and more annoyed!

The next thing that I just don’t understand might come as a surprise to some. I understand a lot about social media, simply because I use it and have done for quite a while. However, there are several aspects that just leave me wanting to crawl into a dark corner.

‘…he’s a hideous, attention seeking w**ker.’

Firstly, there’s the need to post everything. Pouting in your front room? I don’t care. Funny cat videos? Whatever. Asking if anyone remembers stuff from the 70s, 80s and 90s? No, maybe, just about. I don’t want to see what you look like before you go out – what you look like when you get in would probably be a lot funnier. Donald Trump has said WHAT? Admittedly funny at first, but not anymore. Piers Morgan said WHAT? Well, yes, of course he did. Because he’s a hideous, attention seeking w**ker. This, I can cope with though.

By the far the worst and most unfathomable part of social media is something I’ve only relatively recently discovered. Kids seem to have their own social media. A social media far removed from the miserabalism of Twitter, the nostalgia of Facebook and the…well the photos of Instagram.

I learnt about sites like ‘Musically’ and ‘Like’ via my daughter and not only was I perplexed by what I found, I was staggered by what it did to her. Now, she’s always been quite the attention seeker/drama queen, but this turned her into a monster of quite epic proportions.

The idea with such sites seems primarily to be that you film yourself miming along to a song. And with that come the inevitable actions, along with the adding of effects and editing. Now, I know, I know, I know, that it’s just a very girly thing to do and that as a result I should understand perfectly well. I mean, among those of us who are middle-aged, who hasn’t stood in front of a mirror with a hairbrush microphone before? (I’m asking for a friend, obviously). And essentially, it’s just an extension of that. Until you investigate a little bit or literally have to live with the effects.

‘I imagine it was what living with Mariah Carey would be like…’

Within weeks of downloading one of these APPs my daughter had turned into some sort of diva figure. She would constantly update you on her ‘likes’ and her ‘fans’. She’d walk around the supermarket making hand gestures, miming along to songs that weren’t playing and incessantly flicking her hair. I imagine it was what living with Mariah Carey would be like, only without the voice. She was always, always on her phone. The bedroom door would be slammed shut and she’d spend hours prancing about in there, filming herself. It was a level of ego that even I struggled to get my head around! But it was also a level of worry that I was totally uncomfortable with. This is the internet and social media; what 12-year-old really understands that? Furthermore, this 40-something didn’t understand it either. We live in an age of grooming and trolling and all manner of unthinkable things that happen online, so for a parent, the need for my daughter to want to seemingly devote her life to being some kind of mute internet pop star was utterly beyond me. Thirty second videos of someone doing the same thing over and over again, only with different music and subsequently turning into a monster with it. No thanks. Can’t 12-year-olds just be 12-year-olds again, climbing trees, larking around in fields and playing football?

My advancing years mean that I’ve witnessed many examples of the final example of things I don’t understand. The years haven’t helped. I still don’t understand it. And more to the point, it irritates the hell out of me.

Why do people insist on leaving crumbs in the butter? Or the margarine or other spreadable butter substitutes?

Currently, when opening up the Flora – other brands are available – in our house, you are inevitably confronted by patches of crumbs. The reason for this crumb infusion? Our youngest has been given a little more responsibility and is now allowed to butter his own toast. Now this can kind of be excused. His little hands haven’t quite got used to the action of dipping the knife into the spread and when he takes some out it’s usually not enough, meaning repeated visits to the tub. Hence the crumbs. My daughter does it too.

But not every house has children to blame. So why oh why do the crumbs seem to congregate in the butter? It seems so easy to avoid. And the thing is, it makes me not want to butter anything. I have to manoeuvre the knife through the spread trying to find virgin Flora and to be honest, it’s all a bit too much like hard work. But I don’t want to eat other people’s crumbs, even if I’m related to them! Surely, I’m not in a minority of people who magically makes crumbs stay on their bread?

Despite my age, I don’t understand.

Bling. Watch the point of it all?

Four buttons, some circles and a light = instant respect from the kids, innit.

I work in a job that is a minefield of contrasts. I mean, the fact that I can have days, hours, minutes even where I will absolutely love it and still end up hating it (and vice-versa), sums up the contrast nicely. But that’s teaching for you. For all the fun of showing off in front of a room full of kids – because that’s really all it comes down to – there’s the sheer hell of marking thirty essays, or worse still, pieces of creative writing. For every moment of breakthrough you have with a fantastic, thoughtful answer from a student there’s a terrible moment of realisation that there’s yet another meeting to go to.

And yet, as I’ve gotten older my job has revealed another area of contrast that is both a delight and a curse. I’m finding that working with young people both keeps me young – not literally, we’d all be flocking to the profession if that was actually the case – and makes me feel old. Very, very old. Because the older you get, the more detached you get from younger people and what’s actually current.

‘Meanwhile you’ve been attending foam parties…and accruing a debt so monumental that it would rival that of some Pacific Islands.’

I’m not sure that this is the case for every teacher. I feel sure that there are entire swathes of my profession that were middle-aged when they started out as teachers and always will be middle aged. Again, not literally. Some people are just old at heart. In many ways it’s the nature of the teacher. I mean, you can’t tell me that at 22 and fresh out of university you have a great deal more life experience than the teenagers in front of you. In your early twenties, having only just emerged blinking from the cocoon that it higher education, it could be argued that you know absolutely nothing. Some of your peers have been to war, held down steady jobs, are married, have children, pay bills and have genuinely struggled through the years since their own education ended. And boy have they learned a lot. Meanwhile, you’ve been attending foam parties, sleeping through lectures that you turned up late for and accruing a debt so monumental that it would rival that of some Pacific islands. And you most likely won’t pay it back. And still, often in my job, people at that age are stood in front of classes of teenagers lecturing them on life experience. And in many cases it’s because they’re almost born to the profession. They’ve little experience, but are often old before their time.

The thing that prompted this blog was a recent in class conversation. I was asked what watch I had. Now, I’m used to being asked what car I drive or even what label my suit is. But what watch? Who cares! Well, it turns out that boys care, that’s who. It’s vital if you’re going to carry off the right image. The boy in question was wearing a big watch. You know the kind; buttons everywhere, oversized face, more hands than it knows what to do with and the odd (fake) jewel or two attached. I’m describing the watch, by the way, not the boy.

The boy clearly saw having the right kind of watch as some kind of status symbol. I think the young folk still refer to it as ‘bling’. But what status can a watch give a 15-year-old boy? The answer is, I don’t know. Does it scream fake designer label? Does it say nice Christmas present? Does it say show me respect? Or does it really just say, I can tell the time? I still don’t know. Needless to say though, he wasn’t very impressed by my spanking new Casio digital watch. I pointed out that they made great calculators. He didn’t get the irony. Or the joke. I told him it had a stopwatch. He wasn’t impressed. I told him it had little circles on it and I was yet to figure out what they were for. He was blank-faced. In fact, when I played my trump card and told him – while also demonstrating – that it had a light on it – he still wasn’t at all impressed. In fact, he seemed almost personally affronted. And he still hadn’t got the joke.

‘He still wasn’t impressed.’

I pointed out that my watch (Casio, £10, reduced from £20, Argos) was purely functional, that I had a nice watch, but that for now I wanted one with a stopwatch and that wasn’t valuable to wear for when I was coaching football. He still wasn’t impressed. And this got me thinking about how middle age has made me quite comfortable in my own skin. I no longer feel the need to rely on a designer label or the right pair of trainers to make me feel good about myself. Yet I do worry about getting a beer belly or a double chin.

Meanwhile, on Planet Youth, what you wear on your legs, body, face and even your wrist still says something about you. And the more I hear about it the more confused I become. As I mentioned previously, it has the power to make me feel young and old all at the same time. Young, because in a way, I can still kid myself that I’ve got my finger on the pulse but also because sometimes it’s just quite amusing to be kept up to date with all that’s trendy in the world. Imagine my 12 year-old daughter’s confusion as dad is able to regale her with tales of Stormzy, high-waisted jeans or better still, tell her that I too love that track on Capital, because it’s “sick”.

‘…Stormzy makes no sense to me.’

Yet I also get to feel old, because I want to tell my students that it doesn’t matter what watch you’ve got or who your clothes are made by; there’s a lot more to being a well-rounded, respectable human being than any of that! The constant talk of which watch to wear, which music I should listen to, which shoes I should wear can grind you down and wear you out at my age! There’s also the fact that Stormzy makes no sense to me – I mean you can’t even hear the words – I’d look daft in high-waisted jeans and that I really, really can’t stand Capital radio.

Recently though, I’ve heard and discussed what we’ll refer to as image issues (because they’re not strictly ‘bling’ and I can’t believe that people still refer to ‘bling’) that have disturbed me greatly and led me to wonder what on Earth could be going on with our younger generation.

The first instance came during a lesson that I was teaching. I say teaching; I wasn’t. Once a week classes have access to laptops and some vocabulary building software, so they work while I ‘supervise’. This mainly takes the form of asking them to stop getting the laptop to say the names of their peers in its ‘hilarious’ voice and making sure that they’re actually doing what it is they’re supposed to be doing.

It was while I was doing the latter and policing the screens that I caught sight of something deeply unsavoury on the screen of a boy at the front of the room. And no, it’s not what you think…it’s worse. I had gone to the back of the room – you’d be surprised how much this will flummox even the brightest of classes – so that I could get a better view of the screens. All of a sudden my attention was grabbed by the fact that one screen was clearly on Google. Google Images, in fact. And what was he Googling? Rudey ladies? Naked men (it’s an LGBeeGeesandTs friendly classroom, after all)? The kinds of fast cars that he dreams of? No. No, he was in fact Googling pictures of Crocs. Crocs, innit?

Now Crocs have had a bad press. And you know what? It’s fully deserved. There can be absolutely no defence of this type of footwear. Don’t give me the line about comfort, either. Crocs are ugly…fugly in fact. And when did comfort come into things for young people? My dad – 79, corduroy and checked shirt wearer, keen gardener, grower of prize-winning leeks and other vegetables – wears Crocs. Argument over. He’s not channelling some young rapper, he’s just got no shame anymore. No offence internetless dad who has literally 1% chance of ever reading this.

The Crocs thing got worse. I drew attention to it, hoping to shame my young friend into realising that when we’re meant to be learning new vocabulary, we should do just that. But he felt no shame. Don’t get me wrong, he quickly shut the page down and returned to what he should have been doing, but rather than turning a particular shade of crimson, he actually tried to justify his Croc-search. Apparently, Post Malone wears them. Well that’s alright then.

‘Here we have a man at the cutting edge of popular culture…’

I’ve never felt so old and confused in a long time. Now, I’ve heard of Post Malone. My daughter informs me that he’s ‘sick’ on a regular basis. I wish he was. Might shut him up. Post – I’m imagining not the name he was christened with – is launching a new range of Crocs. And this is what I simply don’t understand. I’m sure that money comes into it, but really…Crocs? Here we have – so I’m led to believe – a man at the cutting edge of popular culture – setting the trends, providing the soundtracks for thousands walking to and from school, making memories for his generation who years from now will listen to him being played on a Friday night, after work on Absolute 10s and think, ‘Wow, I loved that track’. And then he spoilt it all by teaming up with Crocs for a chunk of money.

However, while feeling old about Post, with his ludicrous name and endorsements for ridiculous footwear for gardeners, I also realised that it made me feel young at the same time. Because while I feel entirely negatively about Crocs and, however much thought I give to it, will never understand their attractiveness, I can see why the herd are following. This kind of thing makes me feel young simply because it takes me back to my own youth and some of the ridiculous trends that were followed then too.

I was born in the 1970s. This meant that adolescence and early adulthood, and all of the bonkers decisions that one makes at that time, hit in the late 80′ and early 90s. And to borrow a phrase that used to be popular, ‘what a time to be alive’! In terms of what we’ll loosely call style, here are some of the major influences of the time.

‘…granddad shirts, batwing jumpers, Ra-Ra skirts, mullets and perms.’

In the 1980s we had the back end of punk and the start of the New Romantics, as well as Ska, Mod and, as the decade ended, the first real seeds of dance music. Among other things this influenced fashion trends like day-glo socks (often worn odd – and orange and a green one, for example), drain pipe jeans, baggy jeans, baggy trousers, granddad shirts, batwing jumpers, Ra-Ra skirts, mullets and perms. Then the 90s brought us indie music and bands like Oasis and Blur, as well as grunge and dance music and the emergence of the superstar DJ. And again, this influenced our style, bringing with it more neon, check shirts, loose fit jeans, leggings, Global Hypercolour t-shirts and anything that a Gallagher wore.

As terrible as it all might have looked, we all wore it. Me, with two hairy pipe cleaners for legs, wearing baggy jeans. Why? Because of fashion, that’s why. Same with loose fit jeans in the 90s, because after all, The Happy Mondays told us that it had to be a loose fit. I’m sure I still looked like a right tw*t though. I had a wedge haircut in the 80s and thought I looked amazing. And if you’re laughing, imagining me with a wedge, just wait. It gets worse. When the footballer Chris Waddle, who was at my beloved Newcastle at the time, had the back of his hair permed, I very quickly followed suit. That’s right; a back perm, as it was known. In my head I looked just like Chris Waddle. On my head, once again, I looked like a right tw*t.

‘…someone else told him they’re fashion/bling/peng…’

So my point is, that I kind of understand why a 14-year-old boy might be pricing up Crocs on the internet in my lesson. It’s because someone told him that they’re fashion/bling/peng and, bless him, he’s young and doesn’t realise how ridiculous he’s going to look if he actually buys and wears them. I do feel like I should have a word though, because in ten years time when he looks at photos of himself wearing them, he’s going to think he looked like a…well you must know what comes next.

The final style subject that made me feel old, young, happy and sad all at the same time happened in another of my lessons. We do actually work, by the way, it’s just that sometimes kids talk. Anyway, a student was discussing hair. Not exactly a shock, right? I mean when you’re young hair and its varied and often experimental styles are one of the main things that make you stand out. However, this wasn’t any old chat about hair. The boy concerned is the type who likes to feel popular. He hangs around with what are probably the wrong crowd and the right crowd all at the same time. And he’s very image conscious. But he wasn’t concerned with hair styles, as such. Here we had a 16 year-old boy asking about the availability, price, risks and everything else to do with hair transplants! Already, so early on in life, the worry of looking just right had stopped him in his tracks. No doubt he has the watch, the shoes, the trainers and everything else that he feels he needs to feel comfortable with himself and his image, but, such is the importance of the way we look these days, that this lad is already so concerned about losing his hair that he’s making plans to stop the rot. Unbelievable.

Needless to say, I didn’t really come out in sympathy. In fact, I told him that in order to have a hair transplant a surgeon had to slice open your scalp, like one would open a tin, before sewing the bits of hair in from underneath and then putting said flap of scalp back complete with new hair. It’s amazing what kids will believe if you keep a straight face.

‘Just for beards alone, there were 38 products available…’

I decided to conduct a little research to help understand the problem of image these days. I was astounded by what I found. Whilst doing some Christmas shopping online I was struck by the sheer amount of products available. I decided to investigate male grooming on the Boots website. Now, I haven’t got one, but I believe having a beard – and looking rather like a Geography teacher from 1982 – is de rigueur these days amongst young men. I even teach kids with beards, something that years ago, when I entered the profession, I would’ve never imagined possible. Just for beards alone, there were 38 products available, including stubble cleanser, beard balm, brush-in colour gel and a beard starter kit, which I thought we were all born with anyway. It’s just that some take longer to start than others.

If you then look at the category of male grooming in its entirety things become staggeringly complex. Unbelievably there are over 1500 products available on the Boots website alone! 1500 things for men to groom themselves. I still feel a little bit camp on the rare occasions I apply moisturizer, but imagine having that many things to choose form with which to make yourself like just right, imagewise. It beggars belief. Now I understand that some of these products will be in several different categories, but even allowing for a lot of that there are still probably well over 1000 male grooming products available on one website! These included 101 washing & bathing products, 162 men’s hair products, 54 male hair loss products, 497 aftershaves (497!) and even 115 male incontinence products, which frankly, made me want to wet myself a bit. This is all before you get to looking at things like Crocs and watches.

So while I can sit here, all rugged and handsome with my Casio watch on and possible wearing a t-shirt bought in a supermarket, it’s actually not that hard to understand why today’s young men can get so concerned with looking just right. I mean we haven’t all got my natural pizzazz, right? But still, the idea of sifting through over 1000 products to groom oneself before you even get dressed or are able to tell the time makes me feel like we might have gone a bit too far with this whole image thing. The right timepiece, the right car, the right shoes, the right tattoos – seriously, watch the point?

When did I get so old?

IMG-20180101-WA0000 — Young people, doing young stuff, yesterday. Possibly.

I decided to start a blog for a number of reasons – some serious and some just the usual inane knobheadery that sadly dominates my thinking. However, it occurred to me earlier this year that I felt old. Simple as that; not particularly bad, but definitely old. Stuff hurts when it never did before. The legs don’t recover so quickly anymore and there’s loads of things about ‘youth culture’ that either irritate me immensely or that I just don’t understand. I’m ‘only’ 46, but life’s definitely changed. So, rather than sitting moaning, I thought I’d write this.

So, when did I get so old? What makes me feel old? And why does it concern me so much?

‘my heart had been racing for four days…’

The main thing that made me feel properly old (and actually made me think there’s loads of stuff that I should get done, like a blog or taking a year off and backpacking to Machu Picchu, man) was falling ill. In March I took the unusual step (unusual for me, being male, Northern and like,totally macho) of going to the doctors. To be fair, there was good reason and I only felt a tiny bit wimpy about going. I’d felt rough for a month or so but now my heart had been racing for four days. Now I’m no doctor, but I know that your heart is much better when you’re not feeling like it’s trying to punch a hole in your chest. Every night during that time I went to sleep thinking that I’d wake up and everything would be back to normal. Every morning though, I woke up and wondered if anyone would spot my heart trying to escape from my chest as nothing had changed. Because, of course in my mind when people aren’t gazing into my eyes or checking out my sugarlumps, they’re staring at my pecs.

Anyway, I was forced to admit what was going on to my wife because frankly, I was getting a little bit scared. And so, despite my protests, she made me an appointment and I accepted my fate – to sit in a waiting room with Morley’s elderly, listening to lift music until way after my actual appointment time before going in to have a doctor listen to my chest and then look at me like I’d utterly wasted his time.

But then when I actually did go in something quite surprising happened. The doctor looked a little bit concerned. He touched me far too many times with his freezing cold stethoscope. He ‘ummed’ and ‘hmmmd’ a lot until it got to the point that I thought he was going to tell me I probably only had hours to live. But then foolishly gave me an option. Go straight to A&E to get properly checked out – no thanks – or wait for him to ring them and maybe arrange an appointment with the hospital at a later date – yes please. So, still convinced that it’d all magically go away I decided that rather than waste anyone’s time I’d just go with the later appointment and head off to my coach’s meeting. Job done, yay, I was still young and invincible!

Only, I wasn’t. About an hour later my phone rang and I had to excuse myself from my meeting after the doctor basically told me to get to A&E or he’d send an ambulance my way! I think I even heard him use the phrase ‘blue lighting’ and I was sure he didn’t want me to feature in a moody 80s music video. So, in a bit of a daze, off I went. (And in case you’re wondering, yes, Chuck Norris here drove himself to A&E, heart problem and all).

‘I was still in the same shape as I was in my early 20s’

A little while later and I was stood in the A&E department of the LGI asking myself the question, ‘When did I get so old?’ Still though, with a mixture of bravado and my head telling me that I was still in the same shape as I was in my early 20s, I was sure it’d just be magic tablets and getting sent home, wondering what all the fuss was about and worrying that Louise was going to make me eat more of those vegetable things she’s so fond of.

And then a nurse told me they were going to put a cannula in my arm. Now I’d heard that name on Casualty – cannula, not nurse, I’d heard of nurses ages ago – a cannula sounded serious! They tell you it’s going to feel like a ‘sharp scratch’ but it bloody doesn’t. It bloody hurts! Why were they wanting to hurt me? Nurses and doctors came and went, poked and prodded me, asked me many of the same questions (don’t these people talk to each other?) and still there was no sign of any magic tablets.

What happened next was definitely not expected though. A doctor came in and, with her best serious adult face on, told me that I was being admitted. Like, kept in hospital and given a bed on an actual ward. They left me on my own for an overly long time – enough to start really worrying – while I tried to carefully choose my words in texts to Louise. During this time another nurse came in to take yet more of my blood and when I told her about my magic tablets theory she replied with ‘Well, it’s a good job you came in, because if you hadn’t…’ and just left it at that! Now I really felt old! What? What would have happened if I hadn’t come in? She never did tell me.

Eventually I was allowed back out into the waiting area and Louise came in with an overnight bag. And if there’s one thing that’ll make you feel old, it’s the wife. Just kidding, it’s an NHS waiting area. I try not to judge (not really) but let’s just say that all human life is here. And at least 90% of it has dressed itself head to toe in Sports Direct and is no longer in possession of many of their original teeth anymore! Several of them also need to stop bringing pairs of police officers with them to hospital, but that’s another story.

‘…some bloke was wheeling me on to a cardiology ward in the middle of the night…’

Eventually I was taken up to Ward 19 of the LGI and while I felt perfectly able to walk to a lift and find it myself, our wonderful NHS had other plans. That’s right, as if I didn’t feel old and battered enough they were going to take me there in a wheelchair. A few days earlier I’d been chasing 9 year olds round a football field – I’m their football coach, not the Childcatcher or anything worse, don’t call Childline – and now some bloke was wheeling me on to a cardiology ward in the middle of the night with several almost dead pensioners. Probably.

And it was that type of assumption that led to my next bout of asking myself, when did I get so old. On the ward I got talking to a lovely bloke who had suffered a heart attack a few days earlier. We talked about the NHS, how amazing the staff were and what was happening to us. I realise now that I must have looked terrified and he was being incredibly nice and trying to calm me down. After a while though, I caught a glimpse of his heart monitor. His heart was doing something like 62 beats a minute. Mine? 148! Not the kind of race I want to win, however competitive I might be! WHEN DID I GET SO OOOOOOOOLLLLDDD? The bloke with the dodgy heart was seemingly perfectly relaxed while the aspiring Rafa Benitez here was more like Dot Cotton! He’d nearly died, but I’d been telling myself that some magic tablets would put everything right. I was old, I was poorly and worse, I was more scared than ever.

And so that was the thing that brought it all home to me and made me think, amongst other things, about starting to write a blog. I was allowed home the next day and took the rest of the week off work. I rested. I napped quite a lot. I read, watched telly and I did a lot of simply sitting about daydreaming. So, a lot like work life really, except that lots of people were nice to me, rather than calling me a dick all day!

A month later I was back in hospital, again for a short stay, in order to have a procedure where they inserted tubes into my groin and fired radio waves at my heart. But more of that thrilling adventure another time. I’d had a small scare, but now, a few months on I’m feeling like I’m getting better. I still feel tired, but I’m back out doing tentative runs, I’m back at work and I’m back coaching my team again. I can do dad stuff without feeling worn out and I’ve even dropped telling Louise ‘I nearly died you know‘ in order to get out of doing too much or eating fruit and veg. I’m even remembering to use my inhaler.

Best of all though, and despite the realisation that middle age is definitely upon me, I’m still here.