Summertime Blues?

          Summer seems longer this year, perhaps because I’ve enjoyed the extended campervan excursions interspersed with spells at home, where swimming has become a daily routine. Not that I’m keen on swimming per se but, with the sea and an open-air pool on the doorstep, it has become a convenient part of the exercise regime I’ve adopted to defer the muscular-skeletal deterioration brought on by advancing age. And it’s a bonus that, unlike other forms of physical exertion, swimming doesn’t cause me to sweat. Nor does the series of morning stretches that are part of the plan to “use it or lose it”. (Whoever came up with that phrase did a great job of providing an aide memoire for those inclined to laziness or procrastination in respect of athleticism.)

          Autumn is by no means here yet, but the question has already arisen as to whether I will swim in winter. The pool will be closed but the sea will remain open. I could brave it in my wetsuit or coat myself in grease, I suppose, but the prospect is unappealing either way. There is an indoor pool, but it is neither handy nor free and, as we all know by now, the coming tsunami of inflation and energy bills will diminish and, in many cases eliminate, disposable incomes. (Maybe the wetsuit and grease options will be useful for an evening in front of the telly.) Actually, I usually look forward to wintertime – as I do to every season, each with its unique qualities – but this one will be different. For one thing, I will be spending part of it in Australia, where I expect to be broiled alive while trying to keep my cool in the company of family and friends. My summer tan will have long gone and England will be mocked by my hosts as a land of pale-skinned, rain-drenched unfortunates who ought to be grateful for the opportunity to dodge skin cancer on a walk to the supermarket. I shall be glad to get home in November, even if I find, as I expect, widespread civil disorder due to the extreme poverty, for which we have the ‘magic’ of ‘market forces’ to thank.

          The ageing process is remorseless, but we can at least prepare for its onslaught not only physically but also practically and mentally. The importance of the practical side is well illustrated by my ongoing involvement in the care of an aging, invalid aunt. She has been a life-long hoarder but, now that Alzheimer’s has overtaken her, only those possessions to which she is sentimentally attached are of value to her. As to her papers, folders stuffed with old and irrelevant documents such as bank statements and expired insurance policies, they are now consigned to the shredder. I did the same to my own files some time ago, when it became feasible to transact and save all this stuff online. And to those who protest that all will be lost in the event of a mega-crash in the cloud, I retort that housefires are more likely to destroy your precious documentation. (My passwords are stashed in a fireproof location known only to me and my executors.)

          So far, so smug. What I have yet to confront fully is mental attitude. Often referred to as “grumpy old man” syndrome but sometimes manifest in the form of real depression, it is a key indicator of resentment and, as such, an undesirable trait in the elderly. Early experimentation in warding off this evil include heeding advice on the avoidance of uttering involuntary ‘old person noises’ – such as grunting and groaning when settling into or struggling out of an armchair. It may not be much, but it serves as an aide memoire to keep on truckin’ till time is truly up.

 

It's Just Not My Thing

          There are certain music genres to which I have a sort of allergy: I stop my ears, for example, at the sounds of rap and/or hip-hop. (I don’t know how they are different, because my ears are stopped.) Occasionally, I make an effort to listen, but it is always short-lived and dead-ended. Even my last attempt, The Grey Album, “The 2004 mashup of the Beatles White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album created by Danger Mouse”, failed to convince me. The promise of Beatles samples lured me into listening, but I spent the whole time eagerly identifying the Beatles bits and getting annoyed by the intrusive, ranting, shouty lyrics – the modern stuff. I do question whether I should be more open-minded (or open-eared). After all, the fact that a form of popular music is not of my generation or cultural niche is no reason to ignore or dismiss it. In the end, however, I have settled for finding it ‘unpalatable’ and leaving it at that.

          Hip-hop is just one of the layers of culture currently being laid down, with which I have little or no involvement and am content to entrust to those who will be affected most – the present and future generations. We Boomers have had our day in that respect and it’s time to make a dignified exit from the limelight, stand back and leave the stage to younger talent. Not that I would encourage retirement if ability and ambition remain strong, but there really is such a thing as an old fool. Nor would I advocate giving up and resting on one’s laurels. Engagement with society, at whatever level, is what keeps us well. Nevertheless, the past is still with us and, without dwelling on it, there is much to be learned from its occasional contemplation. And I mean not just the recent past.

          In the oldest part of Plymouth, where the original street-layout is largely intact, there is an Elizabethan house, preserved and maintained as a museum or time-capsule. Nearby, is a reconstructed garden of the same period – just a small space, squashed between the surrounding houses. I spent some time in both last week, soaking in the fact that the origins of the city were determined by geography and appreciating just how hard life was for most of the population. These things we know, but they become more vivid when contemplated in situ. Days later, on a soft, summer morning, I wandered the ruins of Haughmond Abbey in Shropshire and had a similar experience. The location is rural, tranquil and fertile. The Abbot’s chambers were palatial, while the monks lived frugally. Nevertheless, I imagine they were glad to have food and shelter in return for devoting their otherwise poverty-stricken lives to a god. The Abbey met its end during the dissolution, just as the house in Plymouth was being established. I felt grateful not to have been alive in those times, for fear I might have been at the bottom of the social ladder and with no prospect of climbing higher. Mind you, at least there was no danger of accidentally hearing hip-hop.

          But, as has been said by someone, “nothing ever happened in this world before the first person sold something”. A new age of trading was dawning in Elizabethan Britain and, with it, came wealth, social mobility, population growth, economic growth and, finally, industrialisation. This is our heritage and, though much has changed and is changing, some things stay the same. Those castles and cathedrals serve to remind us that hierarchies are still in charge, though their outward forms have changed. The present might be comfortable for some and the future might look rosy to others, but whoever coined the phrase “the good old days” didn’t know the half of it. If I were younger and angrier, I might be expressing this in a rap.

By the Water's Edge

          There were several ‘firsts’ for me last week: I watched a women’s football match; spotted a Muslim woman fishing from the water’s edge; and saw a woman in a ‘burkini’ at the swimming pool. Of the three, it was the second that most surprised me. Surely fishing is a bastion of solely male leisure activity (or should that be inactivity)? Okay, footie has fallen from its man-pedestal, but surely not fishing. Mind you, the fisherwoman was not alone – her family was there too and she may have been simply holding the rod while the man was otherwise engaged. Or I could have been witnessing the dawning of a family-friendly iteration of the sport of angling, following the trend set by the Lionesses.

          As for the lady swimmer in her modest, theologically-compliant ‘cozzy’, I have full sympathy. My friend and neighbour has initiated a WhatsApp group for the purpose of encouraging a daily dip in the sea. So far, there are four members, all of us men in our seventies, for whom a little encouragement in the form of peer-group pressure is sometimes just what we need. And, whilst our schedules do not often coincide, the last time they did I observed that my friend wears a sleek pair of shorts that are designed for actual swimming – unlike my own, which are voluminous, contain many pockets and are ideal for a day on the beach but, once wet, cling uncomfortably to the thighs and lose whatever sartorial elegance they might have boasted when dry. On my friend’s advice, I went to buy a pair identical to his (though a different colour, just to assert my individual style) and have since felt more like a fish in water than a turtle snagged-up in a plastic bag. With a little more practice, I reckon I might shave seconds off my time-per-length of the pool. (Incidentally, I have learned something else about swimming: there is another word for it – natation. I have never heard anyone use it, as it is Latin and largely redundant, though the phrase, “Fancy a natation?”, may well be common parlance in the Rees-Mogg household.

          Living by the sea has highlighted one of the consequences of climate breakdown that did not trouble me so much when I lived in Manchester – rising oceans. Now, the view from our window is tinged with anxiety about what we can expect to happen if the present languid tempo of carbon-emission reduction is not accelerated. Day-to-day, there is enjoyment to be had in this glorious environment – I have even engaged in some marine activities myself – but aren’t we really fiddling while Rome burns? Last weekend, thousands of spectators, many of whom paid good money to sit in an enclosure, gathered on Plymouth Hoe to watch Sail GP, an international race competition for high performance, F50 foiling catamarans. They go really fast and are crewed by men. Although touted in the advertising as “Powered by Nature”, there is a heavy coat of greenwash over this marine version of F1 motor racing. Yes, the yachts themselves are driven by the wind but they are made of carbon fibre, a material that no one has yet found a way to recycle, and the whole event is attended and enabled by a fleet of powerful, twin-engine motorboats. Events of this sort may be justified as a way of refining and advancing technologies that might provide us, ultimately, with some solutions to the problems we have created. But we might get a quicker, more relevant payback if we put the money into tidal-flow electricity generation instead.

          Alright, that may not provide spectator sport but, instead, races and competitions for kayaks, regular yachts and even paddle-boards could be scaled up a bit. Even if TV money would not be attracted, they would at least be more inclusive, family-friendly and environmentally harmless – and I might be enthused enough to cheer them on.