Write hear, right now

Terry Wogan, Woman’s Hour, The Today Programme, Panama hats, peppermint Viscount biscuits, home-grown runner beans,fishing gnomes and bobble hats. All the preserve of old people. Well, except the bobble hat – Badly Drawn Boy used to wear one of those, I think. And Bennie from Crossroads.

I’m just practicing because today I finally became a fully paid-up, monthly subscription member of ‘the old’.

So I’m in the den of Sir Richard of Branson browsing the cd’s. That in itself is not a characteristic of having ‘the old’. Not even my perusal of Johnny Cash or Led Zep.

Then in the queue it happened. I found myself standing in the queue beside a woman who I thought really ought to either be a) wearing more clothes, or b) made aware that in modern society we do actually expect people to wear some clothing. Tick box 1 of list confirming ‘the old’. Then I became aware that everyone in the queue must be filming some kind of tv programme for CBeebies, such was the dazzling array of complementing and clashing colours they were wearing. Seriously, it was like Teletubbies with the colour turned to ‘extra dazzle’. That was box 2 ticked.

Then the ultimate confirmation. I presented my chosen records to the cashier, who looked like she’s barely started school. A little aware of the fact that I was probably the only person in the house of Sir Richard at this precise moment who’d selected Elgar and Walton string quartets. In fact, I was probably the only one in any of Sir Richard’s houses across the land who knew who Elgar or Walton were. Possibly even what a string quartet was.

Shop-girl murmered something to me whilst staring at her feet, and I replied ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Sorry, the music’s terribly loud’. And that was it. Prince sang at full volume about 23 positions in a one-night stand as the soundtrack to my youth being swallowed into the earth beneath me, a brief but meaningful scene in the movie of my life. I had contracted all the symptoms of ‘the old’.

I was hoping Tarantino would be the director. I’m sure every male does. With my character being faultlessly read by Samuel L Jackson. I’d settle for Ken Loach’s grittiness at a push. As director, not actor, obv. But it appears Victoria Wood is getting her name embossed on a canvas director’s chair and is looking to start lining up work. And I think she’s got her hands on the opening drafts of the script of my life.