As I say - “Doh!” When I was a kid back in the 60s, all the grown ups, parents and teachers alike had a saying. It went: “The older you get, the sillier you get” or something along those lines. Well, it’s true; and although I guess those teachers and grown ups were applying that saying to children it seems to have come back to haunt middle-age-me just lately. It seems the older I’m getting, the sillier I am surely getting. Senior moments are coming aplenty... I’ve had several major SMs recently including the one that caused a lot of controversy.
Let me tell you how it came about. I was having fun with re-writing that song My Twelve Days of Christmas and had most of it jotted down on the back of an envelope while enjoying a flat white in Starbucks. In comes my friend Geoff. He looked at my scribbling and suggested the substitution of “porn DVDs” for “five gold rings” - which to be honest was better than the replacement that I’d come up with. Okay, fine; that scans really well. And all remains fine until I come to the part where in brackets I ask an MP what they thought of that previous sentence.
The inference being it had something to do with this particular MP. Quick as a flash Geoff says it was Hazel Blears’s husband and so I direct the bracketed question to her. That longhand on an envelope gets transcribed to disc and onwards to print so my partner can play it this year at a Xmas gig. Only thing was, the query should have been directed to Jacqui Smith not Hazel Blears. Doh!
Now the trouble here is, when Geoff says something he is usually right. Usually. He’d be the guy you’d pick to be a phone-a-friend on, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? To be honest he’s bit of a Stephen Fry-a-like (i.e. something of a boffin). But the one inescapable fundamental fact is that I abdicated responsibility.
In fact one should double check, treble check, cross reference and then come back and check again. You mustn’t be reliant on the word or work of others. Anyway, sorry Hazel it was a senior moment. Mind you this senior moment came so fast on the heels of another one that my alarm bells should have been ringing.
But, unlucky for me, senior moments come in threes; it is thus written. And so it was that sometime later I was jabbing away with my left foot for a non-existent clutch pedal on my automatic car as it crashed backwards into a Tesco car park bollard. “Bollards,” I cried, “Doh, Doh, Doh!”
As I’ve said the older I’m getting, the sillier I’m getting; or at least I’m failing to engage my brain before doing things I know need brain engagement. Ergo: senior moments. So remember, if you’re putting: a pen to the paper or a pedal to the metal just think about what you’re doing and avoid a senior moment.
Apparently, learning a foreign language or musical instrument keeps senior moments at bay… so till next time and looking forward to seeing you all at the next meet.
Toodle Pip Magic
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