Section:GDN 12 PaGe:3 Edition Date:190808 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 7/8/2019 17:51 cYanmaGentaYellowblac
- The Guardian
Thursday 8 August 2019 33
Adrian
Chiles
my usual level of contempt for the
Patch Plant Hotel, a new PR stunt-
cum-actually-good-idea from online
plant-ordering behemoth Patch.
The deal is this: much like you
would put a dog in a kennel when
you go on holiday, you put your
beloved plants into the plant hotel,
where someone with some little
pruning scissors will look after it
until you’re back. You could just
ask your neighbours, yes, but who
really talks to those? You could ask
your friends, but who really trusts
them? Beyond the ludicrousness
of collecting all your plants up and
getting in a cab with them down to
Battersea – an absurd thing to do- all of this strikes me as a frankly
brilliant idea. In 10 years’ time, when
the birth rate is at an all-time low
but everyone has a thriving yukka,
these things will be all the rage. And
when they are, I will be checking all
my cacti in and leaving them there
permanently. It’s for their own good.
Joel Golby
Why my
midlife crisis
made me a
friendly biker
T
here are moments in your life when, with a brief stab of
pain, you realise you’ve crossed another rubicon in the
hike from birth to death. I had a big one last Saturday
at the cricket at Edgbaston, which I’ll come back to
shortly. But fi rst, here’s the kind of thing I mean. When I
was about 17, there was standing room only on the local
train into Birmingham. A woman said to her little boy: “Stand up, so
this man can sit down.”
Never mind whatever I’d done at school, or hadn’t done with girls,
or anything my family or friends had said to me – this was the instant
I knew I was no longer a boy; I was a man.
At that age, mainly because I was desperate to get served in pubs,
I always wanted to look older. It was just awful to be taken for a
15-year-old when you were knocking on the door of the legal drinking
age. Then, suddenly, it’s the other way round. I was 32 and about to
become a father when another prospective father I was chatting to
in the hospital took me for 25. I was thrilled, but knew then that the
want-to-look-older phase of my life was gone, never to return.
More shockingly, when I was in my 20s, my whole family was
at a schoolfriend’s wedding in Brighton. I was chatting to the new
girlfriend of a mate of ours called Marcus. She didn’t know many
people there. Slightly running out of conversation, I asked her where
Marcus was. “He’s over there, chatting to some old guy,” she said. I
looked over and there was Marcus talking to my dad. My blood ran
cold; Dad was indeed an old guy. I’d never noticed before.
And at this very moment, as I write this, my blood is running cold
again, because I’ve just worked out that my dad then was the same age
that I am now. Ergo, I am an old guy. Another ghastly rubicon crossed
there – thanks for being with me at this traumatic moment.
Oh yes, I nearly forgot – a man who I think looked not much younger
than me stood up for me on the tube the other day. Nice gesture from
the chap; I really wish he hadn’t made it.
And so on to last Saturday’s kick in the Niagaras at the cricket. The
fi rst time I heard another real horror word in the advancing-years
lexicon was seven years ago, when I was 45. I was consulting London’s
leading foot surgeon about a problem I had with my achilles tendon.
He hailed from Swansea. When I told him how
much I love that part of the world, he said: “Oh,
are you going to retire there?” Huh? It wasn’t just
my achilles throbbing when I left his offi ce.
And so to Edgbaston, where I was with
several medics, one of whom I’ve known man
and boy since we started primary school in- Rhey spent the day tossing the R-word
around as casually as fi elders returning the ball
to the bowler. I implored them to stop – it was
distressing. Panicking now, I worked out I may
have only 15 Ashes series left in my life. Mind
you, the way this Test turned out, that might be
no bad thing.
I never liked motorcyclists much
until, in the throes of a mid life
crisis, I became one. I thought
them noisy and angry. But it
turned out they are invariably
lovely people. There is so much
enmity on the roads, but not
among us. Did you know we
always acknowledge each other
when we pass? It’s so sweet;
sometimes I can barely see for
the moistening in my eyes.
I fi rst came across this on a
long trip to see my mum in
Croatia. On the continent, riding
on the right, it turned out bikers
use their left hands to make a low
victory sign as they pass. At fi rst
I thought I was imagining it, but
after a third biker did this,
heading south towards Lille,
I decided to lean into the love.
As the next bike approached,
I shot my left hand out with a
big victory sign on it. However,
in my enthusiasm, I’d stuck my
arm too far out, and the wind
my speed was generating nearly
snapped it off. This rookie error
behind me, I got the hang of it
and saluted riders of many
nations all the way to the Adriatic.
I wondered if bikers at home
were as friendly. On my next
long ride here, now on the left
of the road, obviously, I readied
my low victory sign for its debut
on home soil. At 60 mph on the
A44 in Oxfordshire, I nonchalantly
showed it to an oncoming Honda.
As I did so, the bike all but threw
me off. Being a chump, I’d
forgotten that signalling with the
right hand meant releasing the
throttle. Which is why we Brits
nod instead of wave. I’ve ridden
from London to Ang lesey and
back this week, and nodded
so much my neck hurts. It’s
a beautiful pain.How do I know I’m
past it? A man off ered
me a seat on the tube
A Virginia
woman
who bought
Powerball
tickets from
two diff erent
states ended
up winning
$50,000 from
each. The
55-year-old
Springfi eld
woman bought
the tickets
in Maryland
and her home
state for the 27
July draw – she
even used the
COVER: JOHNNY SAVAGE; PHOTOGRAPH: CBS NEWS same numbers.
courtship do so because of pressing
external factors: because one partner
is being posted abroad in the military ,
terminal illness, or “ fi nancial benefi ts
of some sort”, says Perelli-Harris.
Foden and Belanoff -Smith are an
example of what she terms “direct
marriage” , in which two people wed
before having cohabited. Since the
1990s, this has become increasingly
rare: 70% of modern couples
now live together before getting
married. “ People are becoming more
uncertain about their relationships,
because they see that so many
marriages have ended in divorce,
including maybe their own parents’ ,
so they don’t want to rush into it.”
Cohabitation is an important
stress test , says Perelli-Harris. “The
previous research used to show that
people were more likely to break up
if they lived together before getting
married, but that has pretty much
gone away.” Most couples will either
get married or break up within three
years of moving in together, following
what demographic researchers call
a “trial period”. “People in our focus
groups use terms like, ‘try before you
buy ’ ,” she says
So does Perelli-Harris think a
marriage after two weeks of dating
could really work? “We know that
couples who have lived together
longer are less likely to dissolve
their relationships .” Meaning that
Foden and Belanoff -Smith are
probably not going to grow old
together? “I would guess that’s the
case,” she says, apologetically. Now,
to take out the recycling.
Sirin KaleI write this in a cafe in Stourbridge. Five teenagers at the
next table, from various places and backgrounds, are
doing the National Citizen Service. They are buzzing
with it. I’ve given my laptop to one of them, Alice Riley
from Hagley, Worcestershire, to explain why. “Four
weeks ago, I could never have imagined the immense
love and encouragement my NCS family has given me;
to be put with so many people from so many diff erent
backgrounds and ethnicities, personalities and tastes,
and form such a tight bond that will honestly last a
lifetime leaves me in awe.” It’s kind of made my day.A cheering
chat with the
citizens of
tomorrow
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