Hey age, you scurrilous demon, you thief of time and wrinkle-free skin. Could you just stop chipping away at my body, mind and soul?
They say growing old is a privilege afforded to few. And I am very grateful to still be here. But youth is beginning to fade like a setting sun over a cloudy horizon. And I’m sorry to see it go, before I’d really had a chance to befriend it, enjoy it and realise I had it.
Things I hate about drifting into my mid 30s:
I’ve STILL got spots. Weren’t they supposed to be a teenage thing? I’m kind of bored of them now.
Crows feet, or soften the blow and call them laughter lines. For indeed HA HA HA at ageing! It is hilarious. But seriously, wrinkles and spots? Not fair. Continue reading
I’m not writing anything this week – I’m on strike*. Instead I thought I’d share this passage from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I read it once, many years ago. Saw the film. But never did I notice how wonderfully Douglas Adams promotes veganism, in such a non-offensive, humorous way. Offensive, humourless idiots like me could learn a lot from him about the right way to go about changing the world.
*aka lazy.
One problem with being vegan is you’re trying to sail the same boat as some crew who want to head on the same course as you do (that is to say, into the sunset, smugly saving the world) but they want to get there on port tack, while you’re very much a starboard kind of skipper.
When I first wrote about going vegan, I could hardly say the word. Nine months later and I’m as vegan as a rhino. Your children’s children can thank me later – as can all the animals. And my own digestive system. Continue reading
It’s official. I’m statistically funnier than my sibling. Which makes me funnier than three entire people in this world – no mean feat. Or at least, if I read the fine print on a recent YouGov survey, I am like 46% of Youngest Sibling: ‘more likely to think they are funny’.
Which sounds to me like YouGov are trying to passive aggressively infer that we’re not as funny as we think we are. To which I say, knock knock. Who’s there? YouGov. YouGov who? You Gov me cos I’m funny. Continue reading
Fijian? Or just a cavalier attitude to sunscreen?
We build a brand. The minutiae of personality that has our friends say ‘Oh, typical Fred!’ and ‘Classic Sally!’ My brand was built on the story I’d been telling myself since I was a child, based loosely on a story my parents told me, with the necessary exaggerations and fabrications to create the unique human being I liked to think I was. Continue reading
From the Isle of Wight? Then no, it’s not coming to a cinema near you.
There are some childhood rites of passage that never made it to the Isle of Wight in the ’80s. Although we did have a Wimpy restaurant, it speaks volumes about the beautiful (ish) island I once called home, that the Wimpy is still there. Is your childhood Wimpy still there? Thought not.
I went to the cinema once as a child, to see Michael Jackson’s Thriller. I remember announcing I didn’t want to go, being told I had to, then falling in love with Michael Jackson. By the time I was a teenager I’d ditched MJ in favour of Keanu Reeves, who after a few years muddling along with a pot belly, is hot again, so I win the long game. #NeverForgetKeanu Continue reading
