callingcaptainautumn

“Age is just a number!” says every other personal profile written by someone who wishes they were younger than they are. “Age is just a number!”

No, it isn’t. Age is real, and shrieking that it isn’t won’t make that so. Anyone over 50 who indulges in any sort of strenuous activity can tell you that age means it takes five times longer to recover than it does when you are 20. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t or can’t do it, just that time affects all of us and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging that. If age is just a number, why do I wake up three times a night to use the toilet? That didn’t happen when I was young. It’s almost like I’ve changed.

Maybe they’re not talking about physicality so much as their frame of mind. “I’m 63 and I feel just the same as I did when I was 18!” they declare. If that’s true, what the hell have they been doing for the last 45 years? Have they learned nothing along the way? The only upside to aging is the wisdom borne of experience that it brings. Anyone who believes that they are unchanged since their teens has never kept a diary, because from the wrong side of 50 the 38-year-old me sounds like an immature clown, let alone the 18-year-old one.

Writing “age is just a number” is another way of saying “I wish I weren’t this old”. Well, pretty much nobody does, so join the least exclusive club going.

“Everything happens for a reason”. Spend a few minutes on social media and the chances are you’ll stumble across someone making this claim. They’re almost right – wrong by just one word, in fact. In reality, nothing happens for a reason.

There’s no such thing as fate, no masterplan, no guiding hand ensuring that ultimately every action has a purpose. Ah, that’s not what I meant, they retort – I meant that a lesson can be drawn from everything, and that’s the ‘reason’ for it, as a step in your personal development. Well, in the first place that’s not what you said, and in the second place, no. The chilling reality of existence is that the vast majority of our acts, deeds and thoughts are futile and meaningless. They don’t advance the cause of humanity, they don’t increase the sum of human knowledge, they don’t even improve us as people. They simply pass the time, and stop us wondering about the point of it all as we hurtle towards old age.

It would be lovely to imagine that we were all engaged in a constant journey of learning, self-improving through all our woes and mishaps. There’s not much evidence to support it though. Are – putting it in its broadest terms – people getting better? Is the world becoming a nicer place in which to live? Or are people getting harder, meaner, angrier, as the world heats its way to oblivion? Are societies getting more equable, or are those at the top getting richer, more entitled, more removed from the experience of the ordinary person? In 2010, 44% of the wealth of the world was owned by 1% of people; now, it’s 56%. The 62 richest people in the world are worth more than the poorest 3.6 billion. If everything happens for a reason, what’s the reason for that?

It’s an unappealing thought, so I understand why people contrive to believe that there is more to it than meets the eye. I get why people have religion, I see the appeal of spirituality, I can even appreciate why people resort to nonsense like psychics. When you inhabit a world where good things happen to bad people, and vice versa, the urge to find a mystical explanation to comfort yourself is a logical path to take. Let’s hope they’re right. But I’m pretty sure they’re not.

“Club Tropicana, drinks are free” sang George Michael on Wham’s 1983 hit of that name. “Fun and sunshine, there’s enough for everyone. All that’s missing is the sea, but don’t worry, you can suntan.”

Drinks are free? What kind of business model is that? As pleased as I am that there is sufficient fun and sunshine to go round, I can’t help thinking that your free drinks policy is going to lead to Club Tropicana heading into administration before too long.

“Castaways and lovers meet, then kiss in Tropicana’s heat, watch the waves break on the bay…”

On the bay? Didn’t you just tell me that all that was missing was the sea? Where are these waves coming from?

“Soft white sands, a blue lagoon…”

Now you’ve found a lagoon as well?! I’m getting very mixed messages here, George. Bays and lagoons sound very sea-related to me. Oh, wait a minute, are you saying that these are oceanic features, rather than thalassic? An awful lot was written about George Michael over the years, but “stickler for specific coastal terminology” wasn’t anything I remember reading.

This is a lyric that needs to come with an explanatory footnote. Perhaps, at the end, instead of singing “Cool, cool”, he could have informed us that “For the avoidance of confusion, Club Tropicana is an ocean-facing venue. We are an equal opportunities establishment, believing that fun and sunshine are for everyone. Also, while free at time of writing, a drinks tariff has subsequently been introduced.”

I was watching the BBC comedy series The Cleaner the other day. It stars Greg Davies as a crime scene cleaner – pretty humdrum stuff for the most part, but I feel like I owe Davies for Taskmaster, so I’m persisting with it. In this episode, he was working at a theatre when the evening’s act, a one-man clown show, turned up early to prepare. Having previously had a successful career in finance, he had given it all up to pursue his dream of life as an entertainer.

After much scepticism and mockery of this decision, eventually the Davies character agreed to sit down and watch the clown’s show. There followed a brief montage, and as a television audience accustomed to such rug-pulling, we awaited his revelation. But what actually happened was Davies told the clown his act was garbage, leading to an altercation. “Not everyone has to have a dream, have you ever considered that?” asked Davies. “We can’t all be clowns or firemen. Some people don’t have the inclination. Some people are happy to be, don’t need a fantasy.”

It was incredibly refreshing. The convention of such set-ups is for the cynic to see the error of their ways. And while there followed a dream sequence in which Davies envisioned himself as a fireman, doctor and pilot, and the clown asserted that “We all have a dream, some of us are just trying to make ours a reality”, the show nevertheless played out in a non-committal (or fence-sitting to be less charitable) manner, offering no simple pay-off to the dispute.

If you have a dream, a burning ambition which makes you want to abandon everything and just go for it, good luck to you. The chances are it won’t happen (we always hear about the beaten-the-odds success stories, rarely those who make up the odds which have to be beaten), but I thoroughly admire your single-minded drive to pursue it. The world needs dreamers to push forward and effect change. Go for it.

But if you don’t have a dream, you know what? That’s OK. The world needs you too. You wouldn’t believe it from The X Factor and Instagram and Hollywood, but most people will never find that one distant light towards which they must push come what may. Most of us are stumbling along trying to make the best of it. Contrary to the oft-repeated mantra, not everybody has something at which they are great, which they just need to realise. Simply trying to navigate life is plenty for the majority of people.

So if you find something you are good at, work hard, love your children and leave the world a better place than you found it, you’re doing pretty well. Don’t beat yourself up because you don’t secretly dream of reaching space, or running a multinational, or making the top of the charts. Honestly – you’re fine.

Available soon on your mobile phone – The Peter Walton App!

Are you someone who needs reassurance about having made the right choices? Do you lack the courage of your convictions? Then The Peter Walton App is here to help! At moments of self-doubt, fire up the app for a slavishly reliable second opinion.

“Peter, should I have spent so much on this cashmere sweater?” 

“You’ve got the disposable income, you’ll get pleasure from wearing it, on balance it’s the correct decision.” 

“Peter, I’ve decided to rent rather than buy a flat – was that wise?”

“In the current climate of volatility in the mortgage market, prudence in housing matters is the correct decision.”

“Peter, I’ve decided to leave my wife and children for my secretary – will I live to regret it?” 

“Although there might be some question about your ethics, your secretary is set to inherit a fortune from her aged grandfather – on this occasion, you made the correct decision.”

So if you need your life choices, no matter how asinine and transparently ill-judged they might be, to be faithfully reaffirmed by an automaton without the degree of independent thought required to disagree with you, then The Peter Walton App is for you!

I once saw an interview with George Galloway – a man about whom there is not much to admire – where he was asked if he had any regrets. To my amazement, he replied yes, of course he did. I’m paraphrasing and possibly not even remembering precisely, but I think he went on to say that anyone who said they didn’t have regrets was either a liar or a fool.

The reason I was amazed is that it’s extraordinarily rare to see anyone in public life at all, let alone in politics, admit to having regrets. It’s one of the great taboos, accepting that we wish we had acted differently, made better choices, stopped to think. I understand why. At its most fundamental level, nobody wants to confess to having got something wrong. At a more complex level, we feel like admitting we regret past actions is tantamount to regretting where they have brought us; in other words, saying we wish we were not who we are now. I don’t subscribe to that notion. I think it’s perfectly acceptable to look back and rue errors in judgement while still relishing the results of them. I regret countless decisions I made between the ages of 17 and 27, but had I not made them I probably wouldn’t be a father of four today, which has been the making of me. Maybe if I’d made different calls I’d be a father of four anyway. Maybe I’d be childless and sitting complacently thinking at least I didn’t repeat the mistakes my father made, not knowing that they would be the foundation of me getting much of it right. It’s impossible to know and, I imagine many of you will be saying to yourselves, not worth thinking about.

Nevertheless, I have been thinking about it a lot recently, as I have found myself dealing with the melancholy of what might have been. Oddly, that is the result of an increase in self-esteem, success at work and a sense of pride in my other achievements which I never had until relatively recently. Feeling better about myself has led me to wonder what might have happened if I’d felt like that 30, 35 years ago, rather than being locked into a pattern of self-loathing. Why didn’t I realise I had so much going for me? I don’t know. Obviously, the trick is to celebrate having realised it now and make the best of it in the years ahead. I’m optimistic I’ll still be able to do that, once I get out of this current funk. Maybe I do yet have that great book in me somewhere.

Of course, in ten minutes I’ll regret having made the above public. It never ends.

Hey, you there – got more money than sense? If so, I’ve got a treat for you! The worst band in the world have re-released their awful 1991 albums as a 12LP ‘Super Deluxe’ box set! That’s four LPs containing the exact same material from the original albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, then four LPs of a May 1991 gig, then four more LPs of a January 1992 gig (which I’m sure was completely different from the 1991 one). Ooh and a Blu-ray and 100 page book (I was momentarily impressed that Guns N’ Roses fans could read 100 pages, but it’s full of unreleased photos and images, so as you were), a replica fan club kit, ten double-design lithos (whatever that means), four backstage passes and more! And for that all they want is £449.99. I’ll take two please!

How I despise this sort of profiteering. Naturally this one seems particularly repugnant to me because the band are so dreadful (I’m aware some people reading this will like them, but come on, you’re just wrong), but they’re hardly alone in doing it. Paul McCartney, much as I love him, is horrendous for going back again and again to the well of his die-hard fans to screw more and more out of them. This is what he did for his 2020 album McCartney III: “The vinyl editions include a variety of colours: standard black, Third Man Records exclusive yellow-with-black-dots limited to 333 copies, Third Man Records exclusive red limited to 3,000 copies, #SpotifyFansFirst 130g Coke-bottle clear vinyl limited to 3,000 copies worldwide, 130g yellow limited to 3,000 copies worldwide, 130g violet limited to 3,000 copies worldwide, Newbury Comics exclusive pink limited to 1,500 copies, Target exclusive green, uDiscover exclusive orange, selected retailers exclusive blue, other record stores exclusive white. In November 2021, an additional edition of Third Man Records exclusive vinyl was released: yellow with black splatter, limited to 3,333 copies.” And who is going to want those? Solely his most loyal fans, completists, people who have been following him for decades and put him where he is. People who really don’t deserve to be taken for a ride by someone they idolise. (There is, I’ll admit, a part of me that thinks that anyone who buys two versions of the same music just because the format is different deserves to be ripped off. But there’s a bigger part of me that thinks someone in McCartney’s position – hardly on his uppers – should be treating his fans better.) Queen are every bit as bad, and that’s on the back of having inflicted the musical We Will Rock You on the world as well. Endlessly repackaging the same material in new ways to keep money they don’t need rolling in, and all of it trading on the charisma of a man who died 30 years ago for good measure.

Talking of Guns Nuh Roses, one of my kids asked me if I had heard the story about a fan being hit in the face by a microphone thrown by William Bruce Rose (known by the hilarious anagrammatical pseudonym Axl Rose – what a wit for our times he is). I replied yes, and that it 100% served her right for going to a Guns Nuh Roses gig. The child then asked if I had seen Rose’s statement, and I replied that no I hadn’t, but did it say that it 100% served her right for going to a Guns Nuh Roses gig? And you know what? It practically did. “It’s come to my attention that a fan may have been hurt at r show in Adelaide Australia possibly being hit by the microphone at the end of the show when I traditionally toss the mic to fans. If true obviously we don’t want anyone getting hurt or to somehow in anyway hurt anyone at any of r shows anywhere … we always felt it was a known part of the very end of r performance that fans wanted and were aware of to have an opportunity to catch the mic. Regardless in the interest of public safety from now on we’ll refrain from tossing the mic or anything to the fans during or at r performances.” That’s a 60 year old man throwing that sulk. “We’ve always thrown the microphone, but now someone says they have been hurt. Well, fine, that’s it, never throwing a microphone again. Or anything else. No, I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to. No I won’t come out of my room.”

I actually think it’s rather sad that he is ending the tradition, which I’m sure was the high point of the event, given that in effect it announced that he was done singing for the night. “Rose has been named one of the greatest singers of all time by various media outlets, including Rolling Stone and NME” it says here. They can’t have heard the horrific hatchet job he does on Since I Don’t Have You. To be fair, it is so bad it is laugh out loud funny, so maybe that’s what he was aiming for.

Oh, and if you still don’t think Axl Rose is an imbecile: “In the early 1990s, Rose became a staunch believer in homeopathic medicine, and began regularly undergoing past life regression therapy.” And for good measure, “During the recordings of Chinese Democracy, Rose had a personal psychic who would look at photographs of potential employees to ‘read the auras’ and decide if they should be hired.” The prosecution rests.