Today is my birthday. And I now feel that I can be regarded as
officially Old.
Those of my friends who are older than I are welcome to laugh.
But I have a better beard than most of you.
I recently saw, on the Old People Music Rack in a local garden centre
alongside the Vera Lynn and (young) Johnny Cash… UB40's greatest hits.
I don't read the Mindset List (formerly Beloit College, though I think
it's now been moved); quite apart from its other problems, it's so
heavily tied to American pop culture that most of it made no sense to
me even when I was closer in age to the students than to the
professors. And I think I define my own history less in terms of
things lots of people know about than in terms of things I've done;
if someone says "I wasn't born when 9/11 happened", well, that doesn't
disconcert me, any more than someone saying "I wasn't born when the
Apollo-Soyuz linkup happened" (one of the first public events I
remember) or "I don't remember Torrey Canyon" (before I was born).
And if you don't know me I can't reasonably expect you to remember
that year when I was working for Demon, so it doesn't throw me if you
weren't born at the time.
Traditionally one is supposed to become more right-wing as one gets
older. I find myself getting more left-wing. Always out of tune with
the times…
Though I am still keeping up with popular music. Well, the good stuff,
obviously; my tastes are wide but have rarely been Top 40. Jill Tracy,
Týr, Stars Crusaders, Sabaton, Sigur Rós, have all brought out good
material this decade…
I continue to feel, as I have for some years, that unless I want to
sleep with you it's none of my business what sort of wibbly bits you
have or where you like to put them. And if I decide I do want to sleep
with you and you turn out not to have the sort of wibbly bits I like,
eh, so it goes. None of this is a threat to me, or to anything I care
about.
For me this sort of thing is made much easier by my not being at all
religious, but I know people for whom religion clearly works to help
them live good lives. Fair enough. (Surely not coincidentally, these
are usually the ones who don't try to force it on others.)
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