I helped an old lady with her suitcase the other day. She said, “Thank you. I’m 110.” My niece tells people with great pride that she is nearly 6.
But when I tell people I am 37, they are not interested.
Looking back on my life, I would say that there have been two great world-historical changes: the Soviet Union fell, and women started shaving their bits.
In 1989, the Berlin Wall was breached and East Germans poured through to be met by cheering West Germans on the other side. The Cold War was over.
And look at this photo of Madonna from 1985. Shocking, isn’t it? Yet our homo erectus ancestors would not have raised an eyebrow at Madonna’s bush. They would have found it to be much as they expected. To them –and to the Victorians, and the Tudors– that was simply what it looked like, and always had. A design classic. Who could have forseen, when that picture was taken, that 100,000 years of history were about to come to an end?
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate.
I suppose the great sorpasso must have happened in the final years of John Major’s government*, when, for the first time in history, it became more surprising to see one that hadn’t been…
And, of course, Nelson Mandela got released, and South African grapefruit was back on the menu. Under the old apartheid laws, Mandela served 27 years on Robben Island for riding a bicycle without lights, whereas a white man would probably have been let off with a fine.
The Berlin Wall, Mandela, Madonna’s bush… Like a jigsaw, all the pieces fall into place as you get older. Then, just when you are finally starting to make sense of it all, you die.
*Correct me if I am wrong about the dates. God knows, I am hardly the go-to guy on this subject. You might want to double check with David Mellor or Heff or someone.
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