I didn’t care much about turning 60. I scarcely noticed as it slithered past and frankly, if it weren’t for the wretched song, I would probably feel the same about 64, writes ALEXANDRA SHULMAN (pictured)
Few An old friend invited me to his last-minute birthday dinner years back. When I arrived, who should be part of the group but Sir Paul McCartney – which obviously provoked an even great number of jokes than usual involving the birthday boy and Lennon and McCartney’s well known ditty, When I’m Sixty-Four.
It wasn’t that funny at the time but this weekend, as I turn 64 myself, it’s even less amusing. I found it hard to raise the merest glimmer of a smile as my younger siblings mockingly chanted: ‘Will you still need me, will you still feed me?’
I didn’t care much about turning 60. I scarcely noticed as it slithered past and frankly, if it weren’t for the wretched song, I would probably feel the same about 64. However, it added a depressing tarnish.
Apart from the lyrics, I’ve always disliked its nursery rhyme tempo, which amplifies the infantilising ‘Let’s pop you up here, dearie’ tone that people use for the elderly, as if they can’t grasp normal conversation. I know it’s meant to be a love song but it’s an old people’s love song. You know what? You are not too old for me. No.
My friend Adam Boulton, a mere stripling at 62, announced last week that he’s leaving his political role at Sky News. He claims it’s the end of the era for his gang of media figures, born in the late 1950s and early 1960s, whom he describes in a Times interview as ‘tail-end baby boomers’. Various reports of his decision included such phrases as ‘the veteran’s retirement’.
Yet ‘veteran’ and ‘retirement’ are words I simply don’t associate with Adam, whom I still view as a young boy straight out of Oxford, hanging out at bring-a-bottle parties in Shepherd’s Bush with a load of other super-clever and ambitious young people.
He was merely expressing something that I had been thinking about recently. Which is that although we – I count him and myself as the same vintage – are not, repeat not, old, we are certainly no longer young.
Many of us had the good fortune to find great jobs as young people. These jobs lasted for decades. Adam and me entered the job market during the 1980s, when the UK was experiencing a media boom. There were many opportunities for young people in London in magazines and newspapers. At 27, I became women’s page editor of the Sunday Telegraph. After 34 I was elected editor of Vogue. This position I held until I retired at 59.
Paul McCartney (left), and John Lennon, (right) were both in The Beatles’ 3rd Oktober 1964. ALEXANDRA SHULMAN wrote: ‘I wish the ghastly track When I’m Sixty Four by The Beatles hadn’t been written.
Adam joined Sky as Political Editor in 1989, after having worked previously at TV-am (and the BBC)).
Our careers were both great and we each had more than 30 years. It seems fair to allow our younger colleagues the opportunity for a new career.
I can’t speak for Adam, but when I thought about whether to leave Vogue, I knew I was more than delighted to hand over many aspects of my role.
Juggling millions of sometimes-tricky personalities, growing bureaucracy in the HR department, and the difficult diary block-booking for months ahead.
And, of course, the fact that I’d been round many of the race tracks not once, but maybe ten or 20 times, before. Can I keep my interest in creating another Power List, or trying to get a cover-star? These are good reasons to pass the baton.
It’s never easy to watch someone else do the job that you had, but at a certain point, rather than keeping on doing the same thing, it’s more interesting and fulfilling to claim a different life.
That is why the gruesome song is so offensive, featuring its slapstick depiction and recitation of a dying, dependent existence that includes weeding, knitting, and other such activities (no offense intended).
That’s not my 64 nor, if I have anything to do with it, my 68 or 70. You can have all sorts of exciting adventures with a little luck and a bit of health. Gen Z and millennials welcome in to day-to-day jobs.
The tail-end boomers are able to explore new areas and meet people.
Do you have enough room? Let’s talk Succession
Fans of Succession are obsessing over Shiv, the media magnate’s scheming daughter played by Sarah Snook– not least for her wardrobe of silk shirts and wildly expensive trouser suits.
But my greatest pleasure lies in the show’s American corporate-speak. Americans are able to communicate with these words in a unique way.
I remember that the first time I heard the phrase ‘comfort zone’ was in a meeting about a dinner Vogue was hosting with Ralph Lauren.
Fans of Succession are obsessing over Shiv, the media magnate’s scheming daughter played by Sarah Snook (middle) not least for her wardrobe of silk shirts and wildly expensive trouser suits
Their very intense Vice President of Entertaining – or some such title – kept informing us that she wasn’t sure if Ralph’s son David would be ‘in his comfort zone’ as we discussed the guest list of people she wanted us to ‘reach out’ to. I was unfamiliar with such commonplace terminology back then.
Thanks to Succession, my current favourite phrase is ‘Can I have the room?’ – an order for everyone to get out.
Next time I want a bit of privacy, I’m going to try this out and see where it gets me.
Does an intern love Sleepy Joe or is she merely lusting for him?
Hillary Clinton’s long-standing aide, Huma Abedin, has just published an autobiography called Both/And, chronicling her journey from the outer circle of White House interns to the innermost sanctum of what she calls ‘a lifelong club known as Hillaryland’.
She is still there today after she survived the implosion her marriage with Anthony Weiner (a US politician turned into a mind-boggling sexual addict). It’s intriguing to contrast her story with that of another White House intern, the unfortunate Monica Lewinsky, whose well-known tale is currently being dramatised in the TV series Impeachment: American Crime Story.
Huma Abedin (pictured left) is Hillary Clinton’s longtime aide. She has published an autobiography called Both/And.
Huma became a gatekeeper for her boss and it’s been suggested that these two women further bonded over the shared experience of marriage to philanderers.
But it’s the utter infatuation of the two interns – Huma and Monica – with a Clinton that I find more fascinating. Monica was always portrayed as a star-struck, eager girl, who fell for the most powerful man on the planet. He then took advantage of Monica and then tore her apart.
Huma is a woman with greater intelligence and brains than Hillary. However, Hillary falls in an entirely different way. Hillary dedicates her entire life to Huma.
Is there a White House intern currently pursuing similar passions to Joe Biden and Jill?