The clock of life ticks on

As the hour hand on the clock of life ticks inexorably toward that inevitable time when I shall be required to face my maker prior to sleeping in my tomb for the longest lie-in, I often find myself sitting peacefully (usually in my pigeon loft - sorry, the North Sea Camp Animal Rescue Centre) and musing on several aspects of the past, the present and those days still to come.

I used to be concerned about a lot of things in my salad days. Oh, nothing much that was particularly deep or meaningful, just the stuff that every Tom, Dick and Frank allows to annoy them. But, as I grew older, one by one those things failed to excite me much any more, and, the older I get, I find that vexatious themes grow fewer and fewer and further apart. Not much bothers me these days. Life is too short to worry about most things - there's bugger-all I can do about them anyway, so why drive myself mad?

However, as one more care drops from my list, from time to time another crops up to take its place. Things such as the morons who are making a virtue out of ignorance as they butcher the language texting in acronyms - not to mention being unable to pull their trousers up properly. They appear to have lost the skill of how to use a comb and knowledge  of what it's actually for. They no longer shave and seem to be quite delighted about the fact that they look scruffy. I could go on but there's no point.

However, it occurs to me that this is nothing other than me copying exactly what my elders said to and about me when I was young, with my long hair and clothing that would have looked comfortable on a clown. Remember platform shoes?

Hells bells, is it any wonder that so many of the older generation have chronic back trouble and have gone bald? It's all the crap they plastered on their heads in their youth - it killed the roots. And what about drain-pipe trousers? Is it any wonder that sperm counts were so low? Everthing was being slowly strangled! No wonder, either, that so many pop stars of the day sang in high-pitched voices - it wasn't skill, it was pure pain.

All of that (and more) to one side, these days things are different for us older boys - and girls. (Ha! Girls! Give me a break! Old boilers in purple rinses doing their best to pretend to be trendy.) At least we had decent music in those days. Today it is all the one note and single line of lyrics repeated over and over. Mind, to me it all  sounds like it has been done by a little kid hitting a cardboard box with a stick.

Today?

Well, I sit in my pigeon loft and watch my birds fighting, cooing and preening themselves - and, in a very short time, I start to feel a bit sleepy. That old soporific effect kicks in, the one I have mentioned several times before. Hey! Maybe that's what they should do with all politicos, of all persuasions and ideals. Put them into my pigeon loft for a while - or anybody's pigeon loft really - and let the soporific valium take effect. Maybe they wouldn't be so keen to send their youngsters out to war so quickly. And, who knows, maybe then they could turn their attention to teaching the kids to speak and write their own sodding language - and pull their trousers up.

The Voice In The Wilderness