Emma Soames I have been canvassing opinion among the younger lot and while there is a pleasing reverence for our generation’s wisdom, beneath a veneer of good manners they fear being bored by their elders – and in this area not necessarily betters. When I hear the speed and quality of wisecracks from twentysomethings I realise that the challenge of never boring anyone to death increases with age. In an era of channel surfing and of the short attention span, our generation cannot afford to let standards of repartee drop for one second.
It can be not at all boring to play this totally subjective game of who is more boring than a bowl of tepid soup. Why is it that some public figures get away with being constantly on our screens and all over our lives, but others end up boring us half to death? For instance, I never found Tony Blair boring but my current list of bores must include Gordon Brown, whose seriousness has spilled over into a glaze of stultifying dullness; most Lib Dems with the honourable exception of Vince Cable; and from the world of literature Salman Rushdie – who is apparently allowed to be boring and recently was even awarded a CBE for services to somnolence. From the world of celebrity Madonna tops my Dull List. She has recently saturated the media with a new album, a documentary and a film. This rush of creativity might just be bearable on its own, but it is accompanied by some very controlled PR, which means that she talks about herself. It is these musings that push her way up my Bore Chart. The acres of interviews and magazine covers that she attracts make her like one of those weeds that starts in one small corner, and before you know it, colonises the entire garden.
For a counter culture rooted in a belief that anything goes, the old hippies and their upwardly mobile yurt-loving offspring are proving to be surprisingly conservative. The fuss made about Jay-Z going to Glastonbury would not shame a vicar’s tea party.
This is the first year that Emily Eavis, daughter of founding farmer, Michael Eavis, has really stepped up to the mark to run the festival and she celebrated it by booking the great New York hip-hop artist to headline on the Saturday night. But the old geetar boys, led by Noel Gallagher of Oasis, came out wildly throwing punches and muttering about hip-hop not belonging at Glastonbury, which they claim is just for guitar bands. Meanwhile, with “only” 100,000 tickets sold in the first 24 hours, Jay-Z was blamed for that too. There is, however, a more mundane and infinitely more likely reason for low audience figures. Surely, no one who has survived spending several miserable days up to their waists in mud at a rainy Glastonbury would ever want to revisit it. In my experience there is no trauma quite like it.
I’ve reached that time of life when lots of my contemporaries are celebrating 60th birthdays as well as some very impressive double-figured wedding anniversaries, and what parties they are proving to be! Silver socialisers certainly haven’t forgotten how to party. Indeed the dawn of a new decade appears to be the time to mark a lifetime’s experience of the art.
Other generations can’t keep up: the twentysomethings are worried about where they are going to next and are distracted by complex romantic agendas.
Young parents are so exhausted by children that their idea of a fun evening is an early night, and the fortysomethings are working all the hours that God gives – their enthusiasm for hedonism curbed by mortgages and early meetings.
But people our age have in many cases stopped work and don’t seem to care what time we get to bed. For many peoplewith healthy bank balances their 60th will be the most opulent bash they will ever give. No one needs to get home to relieve the babysitter and everyone throws themselves into the fray with real enthusiasm. So if you are invited to a 60th birthday I suggest you clear the decks the following day and accept with alacrity.