Drinking's too important to be left to the young

He's been drinking the same beer for 40 years

Went to a folk concert last night. Hey, don’t get like that - it’s not all “Hey nonny no I’ll give my lady a necklace made of frogspawn”. Folk music can rock. If you don’t agree go back to licking the bacon rind off Lady Gaga’s headgear or whatever it is you think trendy.

At the station we met some young people I know.”We’re going out to get tanked!” screamed one. “Whooo – slaughtered!” said another. “Sooooo pissed!!!” they all yelled in chorus. They were dressed in modern young woman’s drinking kit: five inch matchstick heels for more spectacular falls, necks covered in bling as handles by which their mates can drag them out of the gutter, and thin diaphanous tops so they can shiver properly after missing the night bus.

My generation got drunk in simple gear which we could shove easily into the launderette the next day, or whenever our hangover could bear the twirling motion. And we’d get drunk by accident.

We’d meet in the pub because it was the only place that would fit all of us. How convenient - they sold beer there! So we had some. It tasted nice, so we had a bit more. And then we drank some more because drinking makes you thirsty. There were no idiots singing Karaoke. No huge sports screens. No eardrum-bleeding DJ trying to make you wave your arms around. All there was to do was drink.

And so we got uncomplicatedly, quietly drunk. Nothing to shout about. When we left the pub, we didn’t fall three feet over our shoes. We didn’t scream in the gutter. We didn’t vomit over the mate who’d come to pick us up.

We just fell over, that’s all.

After the concert (a great singer called Nancy Kerr) we headed for the bar. Shockingly it was empty. Twenty years ago we’d have clustered with all our mates and gone through the motions described above. Where have all the wrinkly drinkers gone? Maybe they’re all at home terrorised by the new high heeled screeching set. They need an example. Come on, oldies. Let's show youngsters how to get pissed properly.

Can't they see I'm just right for Romeo?

Another commercial audition today. I was “Wizened old man in petrol station.” I wizened about as best I could while refraining from whizzing. These days I sometimes feel my entire acting range is shuffling before the camera, sniffling, grunting and scratching my head.

This is what old men are supposed to do, you see. I’ve been up for “Weatherbeaten old boy”, “Grizzled old storekeeper”, “Eccentric bushy-eyebrowed old guy”, “Wispy-haired old professor”. I can be eccentric, I can feel that weather on my face, I can really capture the essence of bushy-eyebrowedness. Inside. Yep. I can stoop. I can shuffle. I can even snuffle. My tut-tutting has won awards. Except it’s not what I am.

Up to about four years ago I was still doing quirky dads, neurotic vicars and mad academics. There was variety. I was once up for a “loveable and knowledgeable Cheese Judge”. I’m not sure how loveable I am, I don’t know that much, but I am a great judge of cheese. As Stanislavsky said, “It’s all to do with Truth, especially when it comes to Camembert.”

The trouble is all these commercials are written by guys about 32 years old. Faced with anyone over 50 their eyes glaze over and all they see is a blurry mass of wrinkles and a stoop. I don’t live in a Home (Mrs K might disagree), I don’t wave my stick at teenagers and I don’t mutter to myself (except when “Downton Abbey” is on).

You see, the real me is a fresh-faced, boyish, nubile young Adonis. It’s just a matter of persuading these casting directors….

Are you a bona fide baby boomer?

The three at the back are genuine kids. The thing on the  girl's knee is  Caspar.

I’m a pretty inclusive person (I’ve even been known to talk to teenagers) but I have a strict definition of “Baby Boomer”. We are people born during late World War 11 and up to the mid 1950s. For five years our Dads had been fighting Hitler and our Mums chucking hay around. They needed a break and for the next five years they were at it like rabbits. Hence, us.

If you’re not sure whether you’re a genuine Boomer or not, take the following test:

1)      Do you say “Cooooooooool” or do you pronounce it as “Kule?”

2)      Do you still instinctively jump up when the CD ends in case the needle has got stuck in the groove?

3)      Do you regard “Reality” as something you wake up to, rather than a mind-numbing TV show that puts you to sleep?

4)      Do you still automatically upend your trousers before cleaning in case a coin has fallen into the turnups?

5)      Do you know what turnups are?

6)      Do you intersperse your conversation with inadvertent Bob Dylan quotes?

7)      If someone says “Bieber” to you, do you envisage an exotic feathery boutique (and not a pimply underage singer)?

8)      Do you still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night pondering what “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” really means?

9)      Do you moan that modern music has no tunes, then realise that it’s just what your Dad used to say?

10)  Can you whistle?

If you have 9-10 “Yes’es” then you’re an authentic Baby Boomer. A big peace sign to you and can I call you “Man”, man (or ma’am)?

If you have 7-8 “Yes’es”: You’re trying hard and are quite convincing. But I bet you can’t name every track on the Beatles’ first LP. Still, I’ll wave a friendly joss stick at you when I see you.

If you have 6 “Yes’es”: Mmmm. More work needed. Learn all the words to “Desolation Row” and come back to me next week and quote it in full.

Below 6: Sorry, you’re not a Baby Boomer. You’re a baby.

Is it a phone? Is it a car? Is it an app?

Went to a Promenade Concert this week with Mrs K. I left My Teenage Self cringing in the bedroom. “Classical music? Yuk”  he said, spitting out the chewed-up fingernail in his mouth, “They’re not even old – they’re dead.”

Listen to me, MTS, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto rocks. There are killer tunes. There are solos Eric Clapton would have trouble getting his fingers round. There’s lots of Ludvig’s stuff you could bang your head to.

Except you don’t at the Proms. People just listen. That’s what I like about them. Unfortunately some of the crapness of modern life has been seeping in. It’s getting a bit “Whoooh!”. People clap in between movements, which is really dumb because the piece hasn’t finished. You don’t clap Hamlet halfway through “To be or not to be” (“Whahey, that was one great iambic pentameter!”) If you’re applauding, you ain’t listening. If Coldplay launch into one of their hits and everyone roars, it’s because they can’t bear to hear it.

Mobiles twinkle across the Albert Hall like glow worms. Soon they’ll be waving them over their heads and filming the violinist. Promenade floor? Mosh pit, more like.

The orchestra was playing Schoenberg. Schoenberg, I know -  gives me a headache too. Too tricky altogether, apparently, for the two young guys in front fiddling with their iphones. Guy 1 started whispering to guy 2. I leant forward to hiss “Phones down and shut the **** up”. Then I saw what he was googling.

It was “Atonal music.” “It’s the same theme as his Piano Concerto” he was saying. Young bloody people. They don’t even misbehave properly. 

“Hair” today

What makes them think they'll all fit in the taxi?

Believe it or not, it’s just under 45 years since “Hair” opened. It was bollocks, but some people said it was the theme music of my generation.

Let’s listen to what those guys in the hippy tribe would be singing today…..

Ain’t got no teeth    ain’t got no eyesight

Ain’t got no breath    ain’t got no knee joints

Ain’t got no muscles  ain’t got no hair

Ain’t got no liver

Ain’t got no memory   ain’t got no wind

Ain’t got no hearing    ain’t got no hips

Ain’t got no friends left   ain’t got no six-pack

Ain’t got no reflexes

And what have I got?

Why am I alive anyway?

Yeah what have I got

Nobody can take away?

Got my cramps

Got my nose hair

Got my prostate

Got my spleen

Got my dyspepsia

Got my false teeth

Got my prescriptions

Got my bad breath

Got my aches

Got my floaters

Got my shrink

Got my bar stool

Got my check-ups

Got my alimony

Got my spectacles…… Hang on, I did have them somewhere, now where did I put them?  Give me a minute, I’ll find them, they’ve got to be…..

Walking Blues

Not available at Footlocker

Just come back from a week with the Ramblers. You don’t meet any teenagers when you’re rambling. It’s extremely uncool, you see. You’re out in the country. There are no shops to loot. The mud does nothing for your Nikes. The rain flattens out all the spikes in your hair.

My Teenage Self, in fact, is disgusted with me spending all that time with boring sexagenarians (that’s a misnomer – there’s not much sex). But I’d like to reassure MTS that the holiday conversations of sixty five year olds are no more mind-rotting than those of younger generations.

In my 30s, people on walking breaks obsessed about gear. Gore-Tex was the thing. At first I thought they were discussing the next phase of Massacre Movies.

People in their 40s went on about their kids. Damien had just got an A in History so was clearly destined to be PM in twenty years. Rambling, of course, only took second place to their main holiday in Mustique – just because they didn’t buy you a drink they didn’t want you to think they were cheap.

Ramblers in their 50s waffled on about equity release and endowment payments. “Stop!” yells MTS, “This is just so boring and irritating”. Well, MTS, wait till they got on to their garage extension. And then their Audis...

Now I’m in my 60s ramblers have finally got real. They talk about styles (the country walk type, not the catwalk). Specifically, how they’ve suddenly got higher. “I have no problem myself, of course – it’s the others I’m worried about.”

And they talk about cats. I spent half an evening hearing about Sue from Chorley’s killer tom who’d dragged a seagull through the catflap. That was more fun than mortgages. Especially after a large Glenmorangie.

Now, whatever happened to Damien?…

Jumping for Misery

What goes up......

To the Canary Wharf Jazz Festival over the weekend with Mrs K and a picnic. The headliner was horn player Courtney Pine, known for mashin’ up the classics, as they say.

Courtney was determined to get down with the kids.  “Hey London” he shouted, “What’s all this sittin’ down? Get up and shake your booty!” The twenty-somethings round us leapt up like a warrenful of rabbits being chased by a ferret. Not wishing to be party poopers, we said “Oh, alright” and staggered up.

“Now wave your arms and pump your fists!” roared Courtney.

I was balancing a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in one hand and an olive on top of a knob of Roquefort on top of a chunk of bread in the other. No go, Courtney.

Things improved as he began to play some actual music. After a couple of Ellington numbers even the girls next to us dropped their iphones to clap, though they may well have been simply dialling into smaller phones.

But Courtney wasn’t content. It was all getting too listen-y. He wanted everyone to jump on the count of four. By now I had added ¾ of a can of Polish Lager to the wine inside me. Jumping was out of the question. So was counting. Mrs K and I raised our eyebrows instead.

Courtney still was unhappy. He wanted us all to do ten jumps. Then a hundred. Then a hundred and ten.

I was quite keen to stay on familiar terms with the anchovies, the Roquefort, the sausages, the bread, the olives, the wine and the beer.

I’ve seen Jimi Hendrix. I’ve seen the Rolling Stones. I’ve seen Bob Dylan. Never did any of those people tell me to jump.

Jumping is done by teenagers, ballerinas and circus dogs.  Jumping fuses your intestines with your liver and causes cancer. If God had meant us to jump He wouldn’t have made beer sloppy.

After fifteen minutes of being jostled by leaping girls, Mrs K said “He’s not going to play any more music, is he?” so we took the train home where another delicious can of Polish beer awaited. Ice cold, and to be drunk on the sofa.