With all the fuss they’ve been making about pensions, you’d think it was news that we’ve got an ageing population. It isn’t. There’s been plenty of evidence for a long time that people like me, born during or soon after the war, are living longer, and that younger people are either not having children, or not having many. It doesn’t take much imagination or arithmetic to work out that there are fewer people to pay tax and National Insurance contributions to keep us in reasonable comfort in our declining years. Guess we will have to go on working, if we can.

Not that I plan to do much declining if I can help it. I may grow old as disgracefully as I can manage – being disgraceful is exhausting at times – but I won’t be responsible for my actions if anyone dares to refer to me as ‘elderly’, or an ‘old dear’ as I get even older. I don’t object to being called ‘old’, if that’s what I am, but elderly? What the heck is that supposed to mean?

And have you noticed that whenever they’ve been talking about so-called ‘elderly’ issues or the pensions ‘problem’ on TV, they’ve shown clips of old people in old people’s homes or at lunch clubs, all tottering around in a sweetly geriatric fashion. I blame this on the fact that TV is mostly run by young people who have no idea what they’re on about. I mean, very few people these days actually want to go into old people’s homes if they can possibly avoid it, which is why local authorities are cutting back on places. Residential care homes are mainly for very old people who need care, not just shelter. I’m hoping I won’t need anything like that for at least, oh, thirty years? By that time, the young people who make these ageist news items will be worrying about their pensions too.

A market researcher, himself over sixty, appeared surprised that I spent so much time on the Internet – not only that, but that I maintain several websites. He probably hadn’t realised that there are so many so-called ‘silver surfers’ out there. Perhaps we ought to do something about shifting the balance on the Internet. I tried googling the words ‘old people’ last night, looking for senior role models like Sir David Attenbrough, and these were the first results I found (for the uninitiated, to ‘google’ means using the Google search engine, or asking a question, to find information).
Anyway, these were the results – I kid you not:

• Grumpy old people.
• VOP – very old people.
• Bored old people can be dangerous [I might agree with that one, but the story has since dropped off Google’s list].
• Drunken elks attack old people’s home in Sweden.
• What old people do for fun.
• What are old people for? How elders will save the world.

So you see, we’ve got our work cut out challenging all this ageist nonsense. Growing old’s an attitude, and we need more attitude. You young whippersnappers have a lot to learn.