History – what’s the point of having been there?

The Fender Stratocaster. It didn't  reach  England  until  '58.  Along with  the wheel. 

I had an acting job last week - a commercial for a Games Console. I played Klutzy Granddad. In a gap between filming I was sitting around with the young actor playing Cheeky but Clever Son. To kill time I asked the kid, “Who’s your favourite band?”  I expected his answer to be some dreary modern bunch I’d never heard of and that our exchange would go something like:

“It’s got to be the Wet Paint Watchers.”

“Oh. The Wet Pant Washers….good, are they?”

“Well, duh – they are my favourite band.”

His reply was “The Shadows.” What - my favourite band when I was his age?  Then he said, “Hank Marvin, the coolest pre-Clapton guitarist. You know ‘F.B.I’? Du du derrrr, du du du derr, du du derrrrr du du durrrrr….” as he meticulously air-picked the tune. “I got it off Youtube,” he said blithely.

“The Shadows!” I cried, “Wow, Daddy-oh!” Fifty years had slipped away faster than the fizz in a pint of Harp lager. “Hank, Bruce, Jet Harris, and I’m still getting over Tony Meehan having to quit the drum stool in ‘62”.

He looked at me coolly.  “I think you’ll find if was ‘61” he said.

“Whatever,” I said hurriedly, “But he was great in ‘The Rumble’, eh?”

“‘The Rumble’ featured Brian Bennett. Meehan’s replacement.…Don’t you ever look at the internet?”

“Anyway” I gulped, “What pioneers! Marvin, the first UK guy to own a Telecaster.”

He looked at me as if he’d just caught me chewing a bar of soap. “Stratocaster,” he said. I now began to notice his slightly pointy ears.

This kid knew more about my youth than I did. Soon he’d tell me what the attractive brunette in the Carlisle Dance Hall had said in 1964 after she’d laughed out my chat up line. And then give me the Youtube link to it.

All we had to refer to in our day was “Juke Box Jury”, and your mate’s grubby copy of “Melody Maker” which had been passed round the class. How the hell were we supposed to about the music that was going on?

Luckily the two of us were then called back on set to film the second scene in which Cheeky but Clever Son finally showed Klutzy Granddad how to work the console. How he loved it.

Is you is or is you ain’t a baby boomer?

That's what you get for dropping the marker pen in the laundry  

It's come to my notice lately that all kinds of people are claiming to be Baby Boomers. Some of them have even been born in the 60s! Out of pure public spiritedness, I have decided that, once and for all, there is absolute clarity on this crucial social issue. Answer the following questionnaire and your generational uncertainties will be sorted once and for all.

Your mobile battery runs out in the middle of a call to your stockbroker. Do you:

A.    Plug in your laptop and Skype her?

B.     Swear loudly – and borrow your wife/husband’s mobile?

C.     Wait till you get home and use your land line?

D.    Throw the phone into the canal and say “Hey man, I’m quitting this breadhead rat race”, drive your car over a cliff and join a commune?

You’re having difficulties entertaining your daughter’s moronic, monosyllabic boyfriend whom you’ve invited round for dinner. Do you:

A.    Try to bring him out of his shell by talking about the latest hip hop music?

B.     Recommend him to a social skills counsellor?

C.     Put on the telly and ignore him?

D.     Dust off your ancient Stratocaster and tell him “You’re going to love this Eric Clapton number, man”?

You’re in the pub and suddenly can’t remember the name of a 1963 pop band. Do you:

A.    Look it up on your iPhone?

B.     Think “It doesn’t matter, I never heard their stuff anyway”

C.     Bore everyone else in the pub by describing the band to them and saying “Go on, you know who they are”?

D.    Go very quiet, and when you get home, google “Alzheimers”?

At work a young female colleague strolls in dressed in totally inappropriate “slut” gear. Do you:

A.    Post racy banter about her on your Facebook page?

B.     Complain to your Line Manager?

C.     Ignore her. Women these days are all crazy.

D.    Stare at her, slack-jawed, thinking “I’d forgotten what it looked like”?

If you score mainly As: You’re under 35. You think a baby boomer’s some kind of music app on your phone. What in friggin’ heck made you do the questionnaire?

Mainly Bs: You’re a 90s person, so you’re in between the “Me” generation and the techno crowd. You don’t know who the hell you are and I can’t help you.

Mainly Cs: You’re a Thatcher/Reagan child. You’re still sulking because you’ve looked so skinny since shoulder pads went out of fashion.

Mainly Ds: You’re the real thing and I love you! Come round to my house whenever you want, as long as you have a boot full of beer.

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…..