Ageing & Growing Old

[rynner2]

Let's hear it for Sir Paul...

All together now:

When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now.... :shock:

Well, didn't those four decades fly by! 8)

 

[rynner2]

And talking of aging rockers, here's another bunch:

Rockers thrill their generation
By Mark Simpson
BBC North of England correspondent

You know when rock stars are heading towards their sell-by date: fans start putting plaques on walls so that no-one forgets about them.

And that's what happened before The Who's concert in Leeds on Saturday night.

The unveiling ceremony wasn't very "rock and roll".

In fact, it was all extremely dignified, and apart from one stray F-word, terribly well mannered.

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend looked like two trendy english literature lecturers as they climbed the steps of Leeds University's students' union and pulled back the curtains on a blue Civic Trust plaque.

It was to mark 36 years since The Who's finest moment, the recording of the legendary Live at Leeds album. Q Magazine recently voted it the best live album of all-time.

Years rolled back

For almost four decades, fans have been demanding a repeat performance - and on Saturday night they got it.

For two hours and 20 minutes, The Who defied the statistic that made them the oldest rockers in town.

At 62, Roger Daltrey has no right to look and sound so sprightly. His trademark unbuttoned shirt revealed a chest and six-pack that wouldn't look out of place at the World Cup.


A blue plaque commemorates the band's original gig in Leeds in 1970
As for Pete Townshend, his fabulous flashing fingers certainly don't appear 61 years of age.

OK, so they needed a short break halfway through the concert, but who didn't?

By the end, as they belted out an unforgettable rendition of Won't Get Fooled Again, the crowd seemed more in need of a breather than the band.

One 60-something man was doing his best to look hip and cool as he sang along, word perfect.

But on closer inspection, it became clear that the only reason he wasn't sweating was a small battery-operated fan which he was holding under his chin.

I'd be prepared to bet a lot of money that no-one brought a handheld fan to the original gig.

The student who organised that concert - Simon Brogan, the then entertainments officer at Leeds University - was among the audience on Saturday night.

Better appreciated

Back in 1970, Simon was an aspiring young academic seeking a career in the music industry.

What is he doing now? He is a sheep farmer in Scotland.

"It was the music for me which was the interesting part. The celebrity, the fame, the money wasn't what I was interested in," he reflected as he went into the concert with his wife, and three young sons.

A number of others from the class of 1970 were there, including Don Dunlevey, now a town planner in Leeds - and with much less hair.

His verdict on the 2006 concert: "It was fantastic. The first gig made me a Who fan.

"This one was probably even better because I'm older so I can appreciate it more."

Of course, there was one final issue to be addressed - how long will The Who last?

Two members of the original band are dead and the other two will soon be pensioners.

So is this current world tour the beginning of the end?

I foolishly put the question to Roger Daltrey, and received an earful of abuse.

"It was the beginning of the end in bloody 1969, what's the matter with you!

"I didn't think it would last 'til the end of the week."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5091660.stm

(posted by rynner, who saw the Who live in 196-something... 8) )

 

[Kondoru]

Gosh.

Were all going to be boring old farts too.

 

[Anonymous]

:lol:

 

[rynner2]

Right. Now I know I'm growing old - this coming weekend I move into an Old Folks Home (or Sheltered Accommodation, as it's euphemistically called nowadays).

However, I'm a mere youngster compared to this old boy:

Britain's oldest veteran recalls WWI

It is 90 years since the battle of the Somme, the bloodiest in a world war that has all but passed out of living memory.
The oldest surviving British soldier from the period is Henry Allingham, aged 110 - one of the lucky ones.

When war broke out in August 1914, some one million men joined up in the first year of the conflict, as Britain strove to bolster its standing army.

The teenage Mr Allingham, however, did not rush to enlist.

"On 4 August I wasn't too troubled," he said. "I didn't realise what it really meant."

It was only later, when he realised how severe the situation was, that the young man who grew up in Clapton, east London, decided he wanted to join the fighting which, like many others, he regarded as "an adventure".

After joining up, Mr Allingham trained as a mechanic and served with the Royal Air Service, flying patrols of the North Sea as a navigator and repairing aircraft and engines at the battles of Ypres, and at the Somme itself.

"It was the first time I went near a plane," he said, pointing out that the world's first powered flight had only taken place a few years earlier.

His first experiences of flying were disarming.

"They didn't have much speed with them. Sometimes they'd be coming along and the force of the wind would have you standing still. Sometimes you'd be flying backwards," he said.

Stroke of luck

As well as the Somme, Mr Allingham also served as an airborne spotter at the Battle of Jutland in 1916, in which the British Grand Fleet established dominance of the North Sea, despite losing a number of ships.

He said his own ship, the Kingfisher, faced disaster when a German shell ricocheted and was heading directly at the ship.

However, a stroke of luck saved the crew when the shell "bounced over the top of the ship".

"Where it went I don't know but it was a saviour for us. If it hadn't [bounced], who knows, the whole ship would have been gone."

While Mr Allingham faced obvious dangers, he thinks he had an easy time compared to those who served in the infantry.

"On the western front, men in the trenches stood in water up to their knees. They had to eat and sleep in that water. How did they manage?" he said.

He was full of admiration for those men who, he said, regularly had to march for miles at a time, only to stop and dig trenches before marching on again.

"They were like hermit crabs. But I've always said the men in the trenches were what won the war for us."

Following his service at Ypres and the Somme, he was awarded France's highest military honour, the Legion d'Honneur in 2003.

And after losing two of his World War I medals - the British War Medal and the Victory Medal - in the Blitz, Mr Allingham was presented with them again at a special ceremony at Eastbourne in East Sussex, where he now lives, in February 2005.

Mr Allingham's military service did not end with the Great War and during World War II he worked on magnetic mine counter measures.

He retired to Eastbourne 40 years ago, where he has outlived both his wife and his two daughters, who both died in their 80s.

In August 2004, Mr Allingham led the congregation in a reading of the Lord's Prayer at the Cenotaph in London in an event to mark the start of World War I and on Armistice Day in November 2004 he laid a wreath at the Cenotaph.

Asked to sum up the secret of his long life, he said: "I don't know if there is a secret, but keeping within your capacity is vital."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5098174.stm

 

[escargot]

Cheer up Ryn M8! You are now officially a member of one of the newest demographic groups - the Silver Surfers!

Sheltered acc. is great. All mod cons, usually a good bus service, plenty of privacy but a discreet eye kept on you and none of them pesky kids around. 8) And no stairs.

 

[rynner2]

Cheer up Ryn M8! You are now officially a member of one of the newest demographic groups - the Silver Surfers!

Which is a good cue for me to post this:

Superfast internet cafe launches

An internet cafe offering connections 50 times faster than typical broadband services has opened in Cornwall.
Computers at Goonhilly satellite station, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, are connected to BT's global internet protocol network.

That means users can download data at speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps).

It is thought to be the first time such high speeds have been seen at a UK internet cafe.

The service will be free to visitors.

61 dishes

Adrian Hosford of BT said: "It would be possible to use the cafe's computers to download in less than 15 minutes a file the equivalent size of the DVD version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, with its 19,000 illustrations, 629 audio and video clips and 100,000 articles.

"A standard broadband connection would typically take in excess of five hours."

The new internet cafe was officially declared open by Helston Community College pupils Chloe Smith and James Evans, both aged 17.

Goonhilly has 61 antenna dishes and handles thousands of international phone calls, TV broadcasts and data.

The first antenna, known as Arthur, was built to track the Telstar satellite and received the first live transatlantic television broadcasts from the United States in 1962.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/5123118.stm

The article carries a pic of No.2 antenna being demolished (although this is not referred to in the article). And this demolition was the cue for me to start this thread.

But back in 1968, the internet hadn't been invented, far less the WWW.
How times change! :?

 

[rynner2]

I'm back, having completed my move from Rynner Towers to the Old Folks Home... and it took BT 3 weeks to reconnect my broadband.


A bit of a shock to the system when I checked my emails - there was one from my daughter informing me that her mother, my ex, died nearly two weeks ago. Although 5 years younger than me, she was having cancer treatment, and then suffered complications from an infection.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls....

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Noticed you were missing Ryn. but guessed the reason.

Sorry to hear about your ex. Can be very upsetting to hear of the loss of someone you're estranged from.

Hope the new house marks a new chapter.

 

[Mythopoeika]

Welcome back, Rynner!

 

[gyrtrash]

I just bought a Volvo, so I'll be seeing you in the old Fogies place soon Ryn.

 

[Yithian]

I'm back, having completed my move from Rynner Towers to the Old Folks Home... and it took BT 3 weeks to reconnect my broadband.


A bit of a shock to the system when I checked my emails - there was one from my daughter informing me that her mother, my ex, died nearly two weeks ago. Although 5 years younger than me, she was having cancer treatment, and then suffered complications from an infection.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls....

Never nice to hear such things. Hope all's with the new quarters. 8)

 

[gyrtrash]

I find, as I get older, I get much more mellow, less angsty.

But, one odd thing is, I actually like more 'extreme' metal music. I mean, I can appreciate a wider variety of rock music.
I like lot's of 'genres' and types of music, from folk to death metal, classical, punk, reggae, hip-hop, funk, disco... even some C&W! etc.
But, I seem to be getting into heavier and louder metal as I age. Am I gonna be pulling my pension to the likes of Rancid, Poison the well, Soulfly... (Or whatever the equivalent is in 2030!)...
I got visions of me being the old git at a family 'do' and dancing (headbanging) away. Much like the oldies do at family get-togethers I attend now, only they do it to Max Bygraves.
Weird.

 

[gyrtrash]

Oh yeah. There was a rave in the woods next to my house last night. I went down there at 2:00 a.m. and asked them to turn it down 'cos I had to be up for work this morning.

Jeez, I am sooooo old.


(They didn't turn it down, didn't finish 'til 7:00 a.m., and I didn't join 'em when they invited me. OLD BASTID is me..)

 

[rynner2]

I find, as I get older, I get much more mellow, less angsty.

In some ways, yes.

But in other ways, no. I find myself having Victor Meldrew moments, eg

I can't believe the kids of today do not know how to park their bicycles, either against a wall, or at the kerb, resting on one pedal.

But no, they simply fling them down across the pavement (and preferably across the entrance to the local shop as well!)

And then there is the Miserable Old Git syndrome, taking delight in the obituaries when you realise someone younger than you has kicked the bucket!

 

[rynner2]

Popular curry spice is a brain booster
04 August 2006

Call it yellow ginger, haldi, turmeric or E100, the yellow root of Curcuma longa, a staple ingredient in curry, is turning out to be gratifyingly healthy. Now Tze-Pin Ng and colleagues at the National University of Singapore have discovered that curry eating seems to boost brain power in elderly people.

Curcumin, a constituent of turmeric, is an antioxidant, and reports have suggested that it inhibits the build-up of amyloid plaques in people with Alzheimer's. Ng's team looked at the curry-eating habits of 1010 Asian people unaffected by Alzheimer's and aged between 60 and 93, and compared their performance in a standard test of cognitive function, the Mini Mental State Examination. Those people who consumed curry "occasionally" (once or more in 6 months but less than once a month) and "often" (more than once a month) had better MMSE results than those who only ate curry "never or rarely" (American Journal of Epidemiology, DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwj267).

"What is remarkable is that apparently one needs only to consume curry once in a while for the better cognitive performance to be evidenced," says Ng, who says he wants to confirm the results, possibly in a controlled clinical trial comparing curcumin and a placebo.

From issue 2563 of New Scientist magazine, 04 August 2006, page 18

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... 125635.500

Given the amount of curry I've eaten in my life, I should remain compos mentis long after I become compost!

 

[escargot]

Wow, what great news. My mother tried curry last year for the first time (at the Grand Buffet All-You-Can-Eat in Manchester - 3 plates of korma!) in her 70-odd years and loved it. There'll be no stopping her now!

 

[rynner2]

Last night I met an old friend I'd not seen for a few years.

We'd lost touch, despite living in the same area, and when I got no reply to some phone calls, I feared the worse, as my friend is older than me and had (has!) a heart condition.

But he's alive and well, which is nice.

Never say die, an' all that.... even though we all must, eventually.



My reaction to the recent death of my ex (which has mostly been gratitude that I'm still here, enjoying the sun on my skin) makes me think that at some fundamental level I do not believe in life after death, although intellectually I have always up till now considered this to be an open question.

We'll see how things develop as I age more.

 

[Peripart]

I like to joke to myself about my age - "nearly 40 now!" - without actually believing that I'm much out of my teens. I mean, how old do we ever feel? Despite the physical evidence to the contrary, I'm about 22 in my head. Parts of my brain are much younger. I recently saw a model railway exhibition, and spent the next day drooling at the Hornby website. Haven't quite got the nerve to ask my parents for a train set for Christmas, though.

Anyway, my illusions were shattered the other day when playing a tennis match, when it occurred to me that I was older than both my opponents put together. How can people born in the late 1980s be old enough to play tennis, let alone drive their own car to the match? The world is full of very young people, and it's just not fair.

 

[Anonymous]

I so totally agree.

:cry:

 

[Stormkhan]

I'm not getting older. Everyone else around me is getting younger. Selfish bastards. They'll have to kill me before I die.

 

[Anonymous]

Hmm...why should they have to kill us before we die :lol: ...let us change the game - we can bathe in the blood of those younger than us!!mwhhahahahahahahahahahahha

 

[Gemaki]

Back off the meds, then?

 

[Stormkhan]

Why? They're rather jolly.

 

[Anonymous]

HA! I get to decide what mental health is.......Hmmm.....so the blood of the young and a retreat into childishness =immortality. With science this good I bet you are all impressed

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...the pink pills are nice...ooooh...a blue one next

 

[rynner2]

The last baby boomer?
The first of the baby boomers are hitting 60 this year - but for the tail-end of the generation, retirement is still a long way off. As part of a series on the noted post-war generation, the BBC's Laura Smith-Spark tracked down one of the youngest.

The youngest baby boomers are still a long way from retirement age

Guitar-shop owner Carlos Barientos III may be one of the very last baby boomers.

The baby boom generation - those born during the period of increased birth rates and economic growth following World War II - is commonly accepted as running from 1946 to 1964.

Born at about 6.45pm local time on 31 December 1964 in Hawaii - the most westerly of the 50 US states - Carlos just crept under the wire.

But unlike the early US baby boomers, his coming of age was not shaped by clashes over civil rights and the Vietnam War.

The end of US conscription in 1973 meant seven-year-old Carlos had no concerns about the military draft - unlike fellow boomers George W Bush and Bill Clinton, celebrating his 60th on Saturday.

Instead Vietnam was something his father talked about a lot, Carlos says, "so that's how I know I'm at the end of the generation".

Cultural angst

Books have been written about how those born after the peak of the baby boom fell into its shadow.

Perhaps the most famous is Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which picked up on the angst felt by those born in the late 50s and early 60s.

While technically part of the baby boom generation, he wrote, its cultural icons and memories were not their own.

Carlos, who lives in the small town of Aiea, situated on Pearl Harbour near the Hawaiian capital, Honolulu, agrees.

Rather than identifying with the sound of The Beatles and Bob Dylan, he remembers listening to John Travolta at high school - to be swiftly replaced in his record collection by rock acts like Van Halen.

"Then the 1980s was when MTV had just come out and we could put on the TV and see all the rock bands we liked," he says.

Ethnic mix

And unlike the early baby boomers in the 1960s, Carlos found little in the political and social landscape of the late 1970s and early 1980s to trigger the spirit of revolution.

The clashes of the civil rights movement were in any case far removed from life in Hawaii, lying some 2,300 miles (3,700km) west of the mainland and closer to the international dateline than to Alabama or Washington DC.

Carlos believes Hawaii's geographical position and the fact its population is of very mixed origin has created a far more tolerant culture than that of much of the US.

"You are a US state but when you come here, it kind of feels like you're on your own here.

"The culture's different, the food is different, the language, we have our own accent.

"My next-door neighbours are black, Filipino, Japanese - the culture on the island is just mixed. I never was brought up with any idea of segregation and race."

Encountering that kind of thinking while on the US mainland in the 1990s - having gone for a two-week holiday and stayed for five years - "was very foreign to me", he adds.

And while it is hard not to be aware of US history when Pearl Harbour is on the doorstep, schools also teach young people about their Hawaiian heritage, he says.

Diverse generation

His observations chime with a 2004 study by sociologists Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Angela M O'Rand, of Duke University, which sought to challenge the popular stereotype of baby boomers as being very much a homogenous mass.

The Lives and Times of the Baby Boomers points out that rather than all being white suburbanites who grew up protesting against the Vietnam War and going to Woodstock, US baby boomers are more ethnically diverse than any previous generation, largely because of immigration.

And despite coming of age after the civil rights era, many baby boomers continue to experience inequalities of income according to ethnicity and widely varied educational levels, the study says.

The generation's 19-year age span also means the dire warnings of a pension crisis when the baby boomers stop working may be overstated - or at least not as immediate as some fear.

As living proof, while the first baby boomers contemplate their imminent retirement, Carlos is running a busy guitar shop catering for the islands' many musicians.

Aged 41, he is married with an 18-month-old daughter, Phoebe, and devotes much of his spare time to his family, church band and trips to the beach.

As for being the last of a generation? Well, having a birthday on New Year's Eve in fun-loving Hawaii has its advantages.

"It's cool," Carlos says. "Everybody's happy and partying and loving life - and I can say 'it's my birthday today'."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5262500.stm

Huh! Babies, the lot of 'em!

 

[gyrtrash]

I went out clubbing last night.

My knees hurt so much this morning that I could barely walk down the stairs...

:cry:

Just shoot me now.

 

[rynner2]

I went out clubbing last night.

My knees hurt so much this morning that I could barely walk down the stairs....

Just wait until your knees hurt when you haven't been out clubbing the night before!

That's growing old! 8)

 

[Gunnlod]

The last baby boomer?


Guitar-shop owner Carlos Barientos III may be one of the very last baby boomers.

The baby boom generation - those born during the period of increased birth rates and economic growth following World War II - is commonly accepted as running from 1946 to 1964.

Born at about 6.45pm local time on 31 December 1964 in Hawaii - the most westerly of the 50 US states - Carlos just crept under the wire.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5262500.stm

Huh! Babies, the lot of 'em!

I'm 18 months older than Carlos but I never felt like part of the baby boom eneration at all. When I actually was young, I always felt somehow older than the real baby boomers of my aquaintence. I always found them slightly exasperating. Probably because when I was in high school, the "young" teachers--for heaven's sake they were 30 which was, like, ancient--were all trying so damn hard to prove they were still cooler than all of us could ever hope to be

One of my pivotal adolescent moments was having a substitute English teacher who was wearing jeans, a chambray work shirt and hand-knit tie--what a rebel --telling me that a bright, sensitive kid like me wanted to forget about the Ramones and start listening to Neil Young as he was more politically relevant or something. That's when I realized the baby boom and I had nothing further to discuss. :lol:

Although as I get older I do find I apprecate Dylan more and more, And still feel kind of bitter towards the boomers for putting me off him in my youth But I was so much older then....

 

[rynner2]

Although as I get older I do find I apprecate Dylan more and more, And still feel kind of bitter towards the boomers for putting me off him in my youth But I was so much older then....

..I'm younger than that now!

In some ways you do get younger as you get older.

You realise which attitudes are just pointless posing and reject them, which usually means returning to simpler, more innocent ideas.

There was a good poem in the WMN today about old age (it had to be read with a smiley), but sadly I can't find an online version. (The poet was David Prowse, who broadcasts on local radio and has published a few books.)