MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

HAPPY birthday to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 50 years old this week. Are you planning to mark the occasion with a little help from your friends, or maybe have a shuffle round the kitchen with your other half to that romantic anthem of old age, When I’m Sixty-Four? All together now: “When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now; will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?”
While one does not wish to question the Beatles’ undoubted genius, I fear the previously fab four sold us a pup with their vision of old age set out in When I’m Sixty-Four. As an Oxford University professor told the Hay Festival this week, the average baby born today can expect to see his or her 104th birthday. So instead of knitting sweaters by the fireside, renting cottages in the Isle of Wight, and all those other goodies John, Paul, George and Ringo promised, 64-year-olds will still have decades of working weeks to go before they get a congratulatory text message from King George.
Sarah Harper, co-director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, said people were gaining 2.5 years of life expectancy per decade, or 15 minutes an hour, and that this had huge implications for everything from work to marriage. As Ms Harper put it: “We have to start asking ourselves about the worlds we are going to live in with these very long lives.” When will we stop work, for example? Will we stop work? Should we expect to stay with the same partner all our lives or marry again after 60? And will Werther’s Originals be made available on the NHS?
That last query was mine, a little attempt at levity prompted by the thought of what life could be like post 100. In an ideal world, increases in longevity ought to be celebrated. More time to spend with family and friends, more leisure, more travel, just “more”. What could be wrong with that? But leaving aside the fact not everyone (including those in certain Scottish postcodes) will make their century, can we be sure that those who do will enjoy a decent quality of life? Or will the estimated 1.5 million centenarians living in the UK by 2099 (up from 14,500 in 2017) wake to curse each new dawn?
Sobering thoughts, far too depressing for a Saturday, so let us ignore them in favour of asking how youngsters today can best prepare for the long period of old age that awaits. First, they should forget about having a state pension. To paraphrase the infamous note left by a Labour Treasury minister for his Tory successor, there will be no money left. The UK finances can barely cope now with the costs of a growing elderly population. Unless there is a radical change of thinking on immigration, and the doors are thrown open to young, tax-paying migrants, that crisis can only intensify. For the likelihood of that volte face on immigration happening, see the recent vote on Brexit.
Second, youngsters should embrace old age as early as possible. Don’t fight it. Regard elasticated waists as your friend, try Skechers once and you will never go back, and know that not having all that expensive dye plastered on your hair every eight weeks will save you a fortune. As for holidays, forget abroad in favour of two weeks in the anorak department of Watt Bros. You will be amazed at the fun to be had.
Third, be nice to your children because they will likely be paying your way (see first point about there being no government money left). As they get older, remember that dropping hints about what and who is in your will is like voting: you cannot do it often enough. Above all, never apologise for being a burden because you are not. Old age must have some compensations, and among them is being the one person in the family everyone can still talk to when they’ve fallen out with each other. In future, as is often the case now, granny and grandad will be the Terry and June of families: everyone will love them for their twinkly-eyed wisdom and ability to see the funny side of almost anything.
All sorted? Good. Now pass me a Werther’s Original, before they, like the money, run out.

IT'S THEIR PARTY AND WE'LL CRY IF WE WANT TO

WELL done to Jet2 for taking a stand against a hen party wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Bitches on tour”.
According to the airline, the women were asked to change tops. When they refused, police were called to East Midlands airport and escorted the party off the flight to Majorca. The women claim they had been prepared to cover up and will now be seeking compensation.
However that particular dispute turns out, a backlash against the hen and stag parties that make weekend journeys hell on wheels is long overdue. If it is not the T-shirts (and “bitches on tour” is almost Mary Poppian compared to some of the ones I’ve seen), it’s the drinking, singing, and general loutishness. And that is before they arrive at some beautiful European city and march through the streets waving inflatables. 
There is an air of mob mentality about these groups: they are out for a good time and woe betide anyone who will not join in or who objects to their antics. It doesn’t even have to be a hen or stag do. Many is the late evening journey I’ve spent on ScotRail listening to competing gaggles playing their music. Is it sheer selfishness or do they genuinely have no idea how to behave in a public space? Maybe I’ll get that printed on a T-shirt.

TRIUMPH OF THE THREE GRACES

STILL on the subject of questionable behaviour, did you see the selfie David and Samantha Cameron posted?
To mark their 21st wedding anniversary, the former Prime Minister and his wife took a picture of their tootsies as they lay on a bed in a chi-chi hotel in Andalucia. It was either a sweet gesture showing their snugly togetherness, or a 20-toe equivalent of the two-finger salute to those back home slogging their way through a General Election ultimately caused by his referendum on EU membership.
The same election yesterday brought Nick Robinson to Glasgow to host the Today programme. I do hope BBC Scotland staff were wearing their Sunday best for the special visitor, and that they all lined up later to curtsy and shake the hand of this high ranking member of media royalty.
As for Mr Robinson, if he was hoping for a scalp among Scotland’s party leaders, he did not get one. All three Graces of Scottish politics – Nicola, Ruth and Kez – were more amused by him than intimidated. I’d like to think that is because they have come up through the Scottish media school of hard knocks, where most of the pupils are, in the words of Tony Blair, “unreconstructed *******”. I expect thank you cards, chocs and flowers are on the way.