My friend Cosmo Landesman and I recently thought of an idea for a toilet book over lunch. Called ‘You Know You’re Getting Old When…’, it would be a compendium of all those moments when you suddenly get a whiff of mortality. By the end of the meal, the table was littered with paper napkins, all covered in our spidery scrawl.
For instance, under the heading ‘Men and their bodies’, we came up with the following: ‘You know you’re getting old when… you let out an involuntary fart when you bend over.’
Not funny? OK, try this. Under ‘Around the house’: ‘You know you’re getting old when… you’re yelling at the radio. But the radio isn’t on.’
OK, OK. Last one, I promise. Under ‘Language’: ‘You know you’re getting old when… you say “-wicked” or “awesome” instead of “thank you”.’
You won’t be surprised to learn that we shelved the idea almost immediately. Even the publishers of toilet books have standards. Our best hope is to turn it into a Christmas quiz for the Indy (total fee: £2.50).
Cosmo and I often joke about how old we feel, swapping anecdotes about some appalling, age-related indignity. The stories are usually exaggerated, and not just for comic effect. I think it’s a way of coping with our incipient fear of old age. We’re not actually suffering from advanced decrepitude, but we will be soon enough and pretending that we are already is a way to prepare for the coming storm.
I suspect this was the impetus behind the launch of the Oldie 20 years ago. Richard Ingrams, 55 at the time, said the magazine was supposed to be an antidote to the cult of youth that pervaded the media. But that was only part of the story.
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