At a recent conference about longevity, a man, trying to be kindly, told me: ‘Cheer up, 70 is the new 50.’
I found that irritating. Why do we have to pretend that we are 20 years younger to explain the fact that we can still put one foot in front of the other, or remember our nine times table?
As far as I’m concerned, 78 is the new 78. But then I started thinking: ‘Is 78 actually old?’ I don’t feel it. And I’m not alone. When ex-Commons Speaker George Thomas, Viscount Tonypandy, was 90, I asked him how old ‘old’ is, and he said: ‘Ten years older than you are at any one time.’ Which is comforting, but is it true? Are there warning signs which I should look out for?
Searching my own reflection, and my mental capacity, I found ten symptoms which tell you the bad news . . .
Esther Rantzen, 78, who argues it's irritating to pretend to be twenty years younger, revealed ten symptoms commonly associated with ageing
1. Your ear lobes have put on weight
Obviously we are prepared for wrinkles and there are trout-lips and wind-tunnel cheeks to remind us of surgical remedies. But does anyone warn us about the other insidious physical changes? The way our chest outgrows our bra? The hair that disappears where it once was, and transfers itself to new places, chin, nose, upper lip?
And oddest of all, the way ear lobes get fat. Who tells us? Who warns us that we may grow out of our ear-rings? What is the earthly use of fat ear lobes?
2. All sex-scenes in movies are intrusive
There was a time when the lovers would kiss, and the director would immediately cut away to fireworks in the sky or gushing waterfalls and trust us to use our imagination. Not any more.
Actors have to chomp their way through each kiss and their hands go everywhere. Maybe the young enjoy it, and regard it as sex education. But we oldies find all those sweaty close-ups get in the way of the poetry.
Also, in these #MeToo days, why insist on the actors having to hump and pump to win an Oscar nomination?
Forgive me, Olivia Colman, but for me, and oldies such as me, The Favourite was just another example of a male director creating girl-on-girl action to cheer himself up when, in real life, poor old Queen Anne was nursing her sick husband Prince George.
3. You find strictly routines explicit
I’ve always thought stockings and black suspender belts were designed for people who can’t dance. But the professionals on Strictly can, and do, so why make them twerk and floss with silly underwear on?
Or is it the BBC economising, since underwear is cheaper than pretty sparkly dresses?
I suppose I should be grateful they wear anything at all. Although, as the actor Sir John Gielgud once pointed out, the difficulty of dancing nude is that not everything stops dancing at the same time.
Esther says with age, sex scenes in films and the costumes worn on BBC's Strictly seem intrusive and explicit (file image)
4. You’re bored with bad grammar
What has happened to language? Why do the young these days ‘meet up’ or ‘park up’. Who needs an extra preposition? And why are they ‘bored of’ instead of ‘bored with’, and ‘fed up of’ rather than ‘fed up with’. This is incorrect grammar up with which I am extremely bored.
5. You either hoard or declutter
By now you have decades of clothes, photographs, objects gathering dust, all of which mean something to you. Or, alternatively, you have embraced the philosophy of the Japanese decluttering guru Marie Kondo and thrown everything away if it doesn’t give you a spark of joy. I wonder what would happen to most marriages if we applied the same rigid rule.
So you have to come to a decision: either to live with all the tat, or give it to the British Heart Foundation, who will very kindly collect it all. When I down-sized, they came to my rescue and I accidentally gave them a load of stuff which included a solid gold champagne bucket which a kind and over-generous friend had given me. When I realised what I’d done, I was too embarrassed to ask for it back. So I hope it paid for some valuable research into heart disease. When my late husband had his stent, he recuperated with the help of a machine he had fundraised to install in the hospital, so it can happen.
Esther (pictured) revealed she refuses to wear a hearing air despite struggling to hear actors speak when watching TV dramas and having to use subtitles
6. You disregard sell-by dates
I am in a constant battle with my children. They regularly attack my fridge, claiming that I am suffering from food poisoning due to the excellent six-month-old eggs I eat for breakfast.
My war-time memories in the Forties include eating wrinkled apples we kept wrapped in newspaper all winter, and even older eggs. So I have been brought up to disregard labels and still do. (Sorry, tummy.)
7. You complain that all actors mumble
I blame television. I can hear actors who have been properly trained in the theatre perfectly well. But in TV drama there’s a fashion for so much extraneous noise, on the grounds that the real world is full of tweeting birds, mooing cows, police sirens and low-flying aircraft.
So they artfully add all those sound effects, plus music.
My children blame my refusal to wear a hearing aid, but even they put subtitles on TV dramas, especially American-made ones where the actors mumble at a speed nobody can decipher.
8. You forget your neighbour’s name
There’s a bit of your brain dedicated to proper nouns which fills up when you’re around 40. So you can remember all the names of people and places you came across before then, and nothing afterwards. I agree with Marilyn Monroe who said that to remember something new, she had to forget something first to make room for it.
Esther believes making conversation with shop assistants at every opportunity is an indicator of ageing (file image)
9. You chat at shop check-outs
My grandmother used to spend a whole day shopping for groceries, because everywhere she went she would be asked how her family was, and would exchange news with the shop assistant.
Now, if you pause for a moment at the check-out to admire somebody’s false eyelashes, as I did last week, you get shouted at by the rest of the queue.
One lady said: ‘Get on with it, I haven’t got all day!’ I asked her what calamity was going to cut her day short. She half-smiled. But I know for some older people that is the only conversation they’ll have all day. So don’t tell me about unidentified objects in the bagging area, I’m talking to a real person at the till.
10. You still use your cheque book
Even though the young think you are crazy, and your grandchildren try to explain that online banking is actually safer because there’s a trace of every transaction, that online news is faster, that you can read anything you like on a kindle without having to carry heavy hardbacks, and that nobody uses a landline these days, except conmen who try to pretend they are investment advisors.
And you know they’re right, but still you feel safer and more confident with what you know, and you’ve used for years.
And you tell yourself (and your grandchildren if they are listening) that when we run out of electricity, or a foreign power brings the internet to a shuddering halt, you’ll have the last laugh.
Send us your funny stories about growing older at femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2019/02/14/esther-rantzens-laugh-out-loud-guide-to-ageing/
Main photo article At a recent conference about longevity, a man, trying to be kindly, told me: ‘Cheer up, 70 is the new 50.’
I found that irritating. Why do we have to pretend that we are 20 years younger to explain the fact that we can still put one foot in front of the other, or remember our nine times tab...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/02/13/21/9786206-6701725-image-a-9_1550093567848.jpg
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