Making the best of it

It was that day again, yesterday.

The day I celebrate, usually with a small group of friends and family, n many laps around the sun. Yesterday was memorable in a slightly strange way - there were three of us, M, her daughter, and myself.

We weren't allowed to go out, except for take-away food, provided by the Woolpack. I had Chicken Tikka Massala. And a load of presents, including some lovely shirts and some new tennis shoes. And a book on the Lotus Elise. 

The day felt... memorable, but not for entirely good reasons.

50 Today

I was half a century old today, and one of my birthday cards had a short list of stats from 1965.

A number of interest was the average price of a house in Britain, which was £3,820. Now I know average wages were much lower in the mid 1960s, but that's still a very low price.

 Basically, the great inflation of the late 1960s to the mid 1980s gave my parent's generation free houses. As early as 1980 I remember my father laughing about the mortgage on our family house. I think it was a few hundred above £2000, which even then was the price of a not-very-impressive new car.

As the old poker saying has it, sometimes it's better to be lucky.

Birthday

It was my 47th birthday on Thursday.

The odd thing about aging is that after about 26 or so you don't feel any older, it's just the image in the mirror that changes.

Of course it's a simplification. I remember distinctly at around 32 getting the first imitations of mortality, and by 36 fully understanding why even outstanding athletes retire around that age. It was as if gravity itself had been clicked up a notch or two on the dial.

Since then there are long periods when my body feels just the same as ever, and then moments or episodes when shows signs of aging. I've put on at least 20 lbs since my mid 20s, my chest (which was never great) is gradually losing capacity, and the normal aches and pains after taking exercise seem to persist longer. Likewise cuts and abrasions tend to linger a day or two longer than before.

It's all very gradual of course and entirely natural and unremarkable. Practically speaking, my generation is fitter, stronger, taller and healthier than any before it, although younger generations to come will benefit even more. A report I read somewhere this week claimed that one in three babies born now will live to be 100 years old. Which is amazing and also has all sorts of implications for retirement ages and healthcare and the part of ageism (and reverse ageism) in the workforce.

And so much for all that.

I had a great day with Mandy and had some lovely presents including an Amazon Kindle electronic book, and some new tennis shoes.

It's that day again...

My annual milestone (should that be millstone?) has come around again...

As a teenager listening to my grandparents who were born in the very early years of the 20th century, I was always struck by the massive technological change they'd witnessed. They all had vivid memories of horse-drawn transport, airships (yes, airships!) and the first areoplanes, as well as the gradual replacement of coal for heating and powering ships and locomotives.

My generation hasn't seen anything like the same degree of change. Here's a brief list of the things I can remember that have all but disappeared:

• Black and white televisions
• Mechanical watches
• Electro-mechanical telephones
• Record players and of course records
• Microfilm records
  
• Tape recorders.
  

As for new things, the only really significant technology for most of us has been:

• Mobile phones
• Compact Disks
  
• Affordable home computers and the Internet
• Quartz watches.

Of course there are a ton of improvements that have occured to make life much safer and better for us all. Largely invisible things like the replacement of lead pipes for drinking water, quiet fuel efficient aircraft, more reliable and faster cars, the development of new drugs and medical technology, computers replacing paper filing systems, better artifical fibres and so on.

But none of these things represent a paradigm shift (to use the management consultant speak) of anything like the magnitude of the replacement of the horse by the internal combustion engine, or the development of the aircraft.

As for the significance of all this, I'm very pleased I have some memories of the moon landings - in my opinion the most important event of the 20th century and the only thing it will be remembered for in centuries to come.

Of the short list above, the Internet is the only development that really seems significant. It has changed the lives of millions of us at least in the developed world. It's too early to say just what it's long-term impact will be although it, or it's sucessors must be here to stay.

For everything else, despite the image we may have of ourselves, there's been a steady improvement in all areas of life with things becoming better made and more reliable. Welcome, worthy, but unspectacular.

So remember, despite what the management consultants might scrawl on the whiteboard we do not live in revolutionary times of rapid technological change.