We've had fun enjoying all the forbidden fruits. Leather, walnut and thick carpet - incidently, isn't it cute that today's car manufacturers are now veering back towards Victorian gentleman's club interiors- silence, massive fuel consumption and unleaded fuel to boot. Even, dare I say it, travelling at a teensy touch over the speed limit.
All this combines to leave a feeling of post Christmas contentment, a little too much of everything does one the power of good occasionally.
The car is set up for the older driver, the seats are squashy, the gear change smooth, the engine vast and silent, the steering almost too light.
The price of all this comfort is the expense of running the vehicle, although the cost of purchase is very low. Under a tenth of the original price.
So something of great quality, very well preserved and in full working order, as my father said on the occasion of his marriage aged 78, is available very cheaply.
Rather like today's labour market.
Here the magic age barrier seems to be 50, in some areas 40. Overnight experienced executives become has beens. Their knowledge is discarded as new younger players are wheeled in.
In my working liftime we have moved away from the practice of experiencing a long period of apprenticeship before being permitted to speak to customers let alone actually take a decision. Indeed, even in the seventies, in one major firm of stockbrokers a reasonably senior man was almost sacked for telephoning a client, it was their practice not to solicit business- the clients called them.
Now today no one is as barking as that, however, like Eric, the middle aged can still fulfill a useful function.
This weekend a well known sage has predicted the end of the welfare state.
The modern worker therefore has to store enough nuts to keep going after a retirement predictably in the fifties.
Thanks to La Bottomley, jogging, no smoking, low fat spead and more sex the expectation of life has extended.
So, as opposed to the work force popping its clogs within six months of retiring, admittedly at 65, we have the legions of the damned, as fit at 50 as their forebears were at 30.
What's to do with them? It's the great question of the age. The really punchy, who hated the corporate ladder, go self employed and sell their experience as contractors or consultants. Ten years ago these were dirty words. Consultant on a card meant the profferer couldn't get a proper job. Now, with hesitant economic recovery and head count high on the coporate agenda, contractors have become a real force in the market.
Who knows, perhaps like the return of the 1930's style in kitchens and bathrooms, the feisty fifty year olds will become the vogue.
By the way my wife says Eric is grey; I think it's blue but then I'm an optimist.
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