The world is getting old

I was walking down the street when I heard hip hop music blaring out from somewhere. I looked around, expecting to see a car with its windows wound down and a group of youths making sure that ‘their voice’ was heard by everyone they passed. But there was nobody there. I was alone in the street.

Well, not quite alone. There was an elderly lady peddling along on her bike, one of those bikes with a wicker basket on the front, the kind only every used by old ladies. And in the wicker basket was a boom box, which was blasting out Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five.  I quickly did the maths in my head – hip hop was in its 40s now, which meant that this was a first generation hip hop fan on the way back from collecting her pension.

In sport, the old generation simply refuses to bow out. Nadal and Djokovic are still unbeatable, resting between sets in their bath chairs where they are set upon by teams of nurses, then stagging up back out of their seat to thrash the living pants off their opponent in the next set.

In snooker, Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams play like they’ve developed a special form of snooker dementia, which makes them forget they should be losing out to the new breed by now. And in cricket, James Anderson bowls on, breaking new records with every delivery, while the next generation of bowlers spend most of their time in hospital beds, recovering from their latest injury or operation.

In the US of A, the presidential race resembles that Father Ted episode with the over eighties 5-a-side match, with Trump trying to guess the name of the president, ‘Obamna,’ he hazards, ‘Crooked Hilary’. He gives up after two guesses and instead rambles on about perfect walls and phone calls. In the other corner, Biden mumbles to himself inaudibly, people try to work out what he’s saying, ‘Has anyone seen me teeth?’

Our ‘new’ king was older at his coronation that the previous two monarchs combined, older than King Lear was when he went doolally, and some would say that Charles had a head start in that respect.

My own body is perhaps the worst of them. My hair and beard are turning gray, an embarrassing reminder that I should have grown wise by now. My chest has grown a bizarre assortment of skin flaps, and various unidentifiable lumps and protrusions, to the extent that it now resembles a child’s activity toy.  I almost expect a bell to ring whenever my armpit flap is tugged.  

And around me, postwar schools and hospitals crumble, untouched for over a decade. A select group of 40 hospitals have been given a coat of paint, thus becoming ‘new hospitals’, the rest are left to rot and crumble like the roads, whilst the rail timetable has become nothing beyond a theoretical construct, like the statute for a mythical kingdom.

As for the politicians, they are like  a nightmare I had in the early eighties after watching Spartacus three times in a week. “I’m the new Thatcher,” cries  Rishi Sunak. “No, I’m the new Thatcher,” cries Liz Truss. “I’m the new Thatcher,” cry Starmer and Reeves, and also Streeting, though secretly he thinks that Thatcher was a bit too left wing.

One day, I’m assured, we will all cease to grow older and will finally die. Unless I’m dead already, and this is all just punishment for a sinful life.