Life in Black and White

When do you know that you've reached middle age?  Not 'late youth' as I've been defining myself since I turned forty, but actual skin-slackening, life-weary middle age?  I can tell you.  It's when adverts on the telly leave you feeling excluded and incredulous and when the discussion of plans to alter the output on Radio 4 make you want to lie down in the road in protest.

I like to think that, although I'm knocking on a bit, I'm still where it's at (whatever 'it' is); I know my Hollister from my Abercrombie and Fitch, my Tinie Tempah from my Biggie Smalls and although I still write in coherent English, I can txt and msg gr8 (though these hateful contractions are painful beyond words to me, who delights in the visual experience of words, as well as in their functionality - see, I really, truly am a Radio 4 listener and there ain't no denyin' it).  But I find I am being steadily alienated by a culture created by bright, undoubtedly youthful, advertising execs, who are so tuned in to the cultural zeitgeist that they're probably on the verge of existing only as a version of themselves on Facebook.

That I am no longer part of the demographic at which funky, modern products and services are aimed took me completely by surprise.  There I was, collapsed on the sofa, one eye on 'Words with Friends', one eye on the telly and the other appreciating a crisp glass of discounted Sauvignon Blanc (my third, if you're wondering about the multiple eye thing) when an advert came on featuring two young people in a music shop.  She's wearing a jumper clearly thieved from the wardrobe mistress on the 1978 telly series, 'Heidi' while he's in a single breasted suit from 'Alfie' - the original, not the heinous Jude Law version.  They are so achingly attractive they'd clearly never require the online dating service they're advertising.  Anyway, not only do they look fabulous in their stolen clothes but they sing and play instruments too (at least, he does, reinforcing the male-as-talent-behind-pretty-girl-lead stereotype) and what they sing about is 'old movies'.  Old movies 'like Godfather III'.

Well, not only did I choke on my special offer wine, but I accidentally hit 'submit' on my Scrabble game and sent 'red' instead of 'redoubt' (the 'b' would've hit a triple letter bonus) which was going to detrimentally impact on my score against an actor friend playing me from a New York rehearsal room (oh, get me!). 

"Godfather III," I raged, "was released in 1990.  I have pants older than that film!"  But where for me, 'old movies' means 'Casablanca', 'The Philadelphia Story' and 'Way Out West', for the genuinely young, 'old' in this context means any film that doesn't feature a mobile phone.  Whoops, no, I'm wrong.  There are mobiles as big as shoe boxes in 'Wall Street' and, according to a twenty-five year old friend of mine, that's definitely old.  I sighed.  It was made in 1987.  Same as my A levels.  Anyway, you get the picture.  My old movies are way older than advertising account managers' old movies.  Theirs are in colour for a start.  I started to feel very black and white.

No sooner had this feeling gripped me by my aged gusset, than another advert grabbed my attention.  This was for a yogurt branded 'Nom'.  I'm not sure I can articulate my irrational revulsion at this word.  It's something to do with its ugliness.  It's supposedly onomatopoeic but if I ever met a person who made the cretinous 'nom, nom' sound when they ate I'm afraid I would be provoked to violence.  But I note from my young Facebook 'friends' that this is a popular and contemporary expression of gleeful delight at deliciousness; the modern equivalent of 'yummy' I suppose. Now, whilst I would be happy, grateful even, to be described as a 'yummy mummy' I would never want to be termed a 'nommy mommy'. 

So that's it.  I will never be able to eat that creamy, dairy dessert, no matter how tempting, how flavoursome, healthy and bone-strengthening it might be.  I hate its name and that's that.  For the same reasons I'd never be able to make a relationship with anyone called Bradley, no matter how gorgeous, intelligent, physically well coordinated he might be, nor how many modern languages he might speak.

If, from this, you deduce that I'm not coping very well with change and the nuances of modern life, you'd be right.  The final underlining in bold felt tip of this fact came when I heard of the BBC Trust's recommendations that Radio 4 seek a younger, less educated, less middle class, more northern (these all to be unrelated) audience.  AS IF THERE ISN'T ENOUGH BBC CONTENT THAT ALREADY SERVES THESE PEOPLE. (Ohmigod, I did it.  I did visual shouting.)

Radio 4 does a brilliant, sadly unique, job of providing intelligent programmes for intelligent people.  And those intelligent people might not be educated, or middle class (but they might be) and they might not be young (but some are) but they do need a real choice about what to listen to and that choice must include intellectually challenging content.  For my money, Radio 4 is the most democratic institution that exists in the media. Find it and you find yourself an education; the education the government can't provide, filled with classical civilisation, science, history, philosophy, sociology and literature as well as current affairs, politics, comedy, drama and The Archers (because even boffins need down time).

 What the Trust fails to consider is that most twenty-somethings, infantilised by a state that can't provide jobs for them and which obliges them to live at home longer because they can't afford to move out, aren't necessarily ready for Radio 4.  They're listening to all the shouty stuff (nom, nom!) and the loud music on Radio 1, because, let's face it, you can't get tipsy with your girlfriends and get dressed for a Saturday night listening to Clive Anderson's Loose Ends, can you? 

Just as one graduates from Coco Pops to Alpen, so young Radio 1 listeners can mature into Radio 4 listeners. I should have a bumper sticker made:  'Radio 4 listeners get there in their own time.'  The Trust members need to think back to their own youth and they might just remember that there was a time when knocking back twelve cans of Carlsberg and making an arse of yourself in front of your mates held infinitely more appeal than Melvyn Bragg and 'In Our Time'.  And if I've got that wrong, Melvyn needs to move to Radio 1. 

When I think about new yogurt and old movies, I have to know there's a place I can go to where it's ok to be old.  Radio 4 was it...