growing old disgracefully

i've been thinking about the ways in which aging effects us - how some people fight against it while others accept it and stop worrying about the outward signs of advancing old age and embrace all its advantages such as the enjoyment of being a grouch and pissing people off by pretending to be deaf

walking up and down orchard road i have been amused by posters featuring hollywood and hong kong icons raquel welch and andy lau

it's amazing what a spot of carefully trowelled-on make-up in the right places, a bit of judicious air-brushing and, in raquel's case, some rather ill-advised rhinoplasty (or maybe she's always had a nose like some sort of appendage on a swiss army knife), can achieve - they both look like they've just stepped out of a gerry anderson supermarionation show - the only things that are missing are the usually clearly visible wires

that's what makes it funny to me, i suppose - the knowledge that at their ages, the only thing that can create the illusion that they still look young and beautiful (not sure about the latter with andy, as, to me, facially he's always vaguely resembled a ferret) is a clever computer facelift (my mind races back to that famous scene in 'dynasty' where joan collins agreed to shoot a scene without make-up)

i suppose it's different for these kind of celebrities who rely more on looks and being fashionable than they do on their limited abilities as actors and have built careers around their appearance - and good luck to them, i say - as zero mostel shouted through his dirty window in 'the producers', if you've got it baby, flaunt it, flaunt it!

as for myself, and all of the other ordinary people i know, good-looking or otherwise, i think one of the advantages of growing older is the cultivation of not giving a toss about what other people think of you, your appearance, your day to day dealings with the world around you and your personal opinions, whether they be ill-informed or admirable - this is an attitude which took root in my mind during the last decade and has been slowly growing month after month ever since, although people who have known me since my teenage years would testify to the fashion police that i've never particularly given a toss about my outward appearance either physically or sartorially - this, unfortunately often annoys k., who has spent the last ten years trying, mostly unsuccessfully, both by example and by turns with subtle and unsubtle hints, to instill in me a sense of pride in my appearance and some semblance of fashion sense

but tish and piff - i'll have none of it (although after an extreme period of weight loss i have been known to browse around some of the more fashionable outlets in paragon and ngee ann city)

to me, growing older is something that should be embraced gleefully - after decades of putting up with all the crap of every day life and work, you've earned the right to be unabashedly scruffy and unashamedly pompous, grumpy and cantankerous - these are just some of the pleasures i'll be looking forward to over the next two or three decades (unless of, of course, i unexpectedly come into a large fortune - then, grasping my zimmer frame in both shaking hands, i'll probably be hobbling off to my local plastic surgeon with a wad of thousand dollar bills sticking out of the top of my incontinence pants and dialling round the more exclusive escort agencies...)

trifles

so after a few weeks of living out of a suitcase and then a week avoiding the apartment we've moved into due to an abscence of furniture, life seems to be getting back to an approximation of what it was just over two and a half years ago

i have a ridiculously large amount of time to idle away over the week, which i spend in solitary pursuits, and seem to cram in most of my working hours over friday, saturday and sunday, allowing me little time to socialise with anybody i know over the weekends while k. has days when he's very free and others when he seems to be working eighteen hours a day - and, as before we look forward to public holidays as the only days off we actually have together and the only nights when i can go out on the piss with people i know

it's quite bizarre - i went back to england to catch up on my classroom teaching skills and here i am back in singapore writing and running presentation skills workshops for staff of a famous burger outlet named after a certain old gentleman who had a farm with an e-i-e-i-o - not quite what i was expecting - but as wise mr heaton once wrote, go with the flow

i think one of the more surprising aspects of returning here after a break has been a diminishing of my personal annoyance-o-meter - all the little things about this place that used to niggle at me just seem to wash over me now

bad service in restaurants, cafes, shops and bars, rude and obnoxious customers who treat waiters, servers, bartenders and assistants badly, taxi drivers who have no idea where they are going (or pretend to), the use of emotive tabloid language and slang phrases in the straits times, female news readers on channel news asia with their over-the-top pronunciation, radio dj's and announcers with their fake american accents who sound like someone's permanently tickling them with some sort of feathered implement, queue-jumpers, loud children running around unsupervised because their parents can't control them or they've neglected their responsibilities by leaving their kids in charge of maids who let them do what they want (and who can blame them?), people who stare at you unabashedly because you're a foreigner, discourteous drivers (and those twots who think that the car horn is something that has to be sounded every thirty seconds), locally produced television programmes with acting so bad it wouldn't be allowed in a school play back in the uk (we were lucky enough to catch a bit of 'heartlanders' the other night and didn't we laugh - the tears were rolling down our legs) - and, of course, my fellow expats, whose mission in life seems to be to moan and generally complain about all aspects of life in singapore just as i'm doing now - although i do (uncharacteristically for me) have a point

all of the above-mentioned things and a lot more besides, trivial though they might seem to others, would in my younger years often send me off, if not on a rant, then certainly on a bout of whingeing and general moaning in a typical expat self-rightoeus tone of voice to anyone who would listen to me

i mentioned this to k. the other day who said that he feels the same way - we were trying to work out whether this more laid-back attitude is a result of our recent overseas sojourn and travels or whether we're mellowing with our advancing years (as he's seven years younger than me, that seems to confirm the suspicion i've always had that i'm a late developer)

or maybe it's just that as we grow older we get to the point where we can't be arsed expending valuable energy on trifling matters

in loving memory of a fucking brilliant band

So I'm queuing for a tattoo and I can't decide the name
I've been wondering night after night
When they put that needle in me I'll scream your name in pain
And I hope he spells 'you bastard' right

B-A-S-T-A-R-D, stick that needle deep in me

tattoo - the beautiful south:
miaow (1994)

farewell beautiful south

your songs made me grin, chuckle, laugh out loud and cry unashamedly

you can't have too many good times, children,
you can't have too many lines...