How quickly we slide into slippered pantaloons

When you hit late middle age something weird happens to time. It goes wrong. It stands still. It accelerates. Days stretch out for ever. Years disappear. This is discombobulating. Time spans

are a particular problem. They go rogue. Consider the 11 years between the ages of 47 and 58. They seem no big deal. A fair chunk of time but nothing much to worry about. After that the

calculus changes. At my next birthday I will be 59. Add 11 years to that and it takes me to 70. Seventy years of age! In 11 years’ time! I find this so astonishing I have used two

exclamation marks. I never use exclamation marks. I think I need a lie down. We get hung up on landmark birthdays ending with a zero but a more useful measure is Shakespeare’s seven ages of

man, from _As You Like It_. Advertisement It starts with the mewling infant and progresses through the whining schoolboy, the sighing lover and the reckless soldier. Been there. Done it. Got

the T-shirt, which no longer fits. My problem is that I seem to be caught between the fifth and sixth ages of man. The fifth is “the justice, / In fair round belly with good capon lin’d, /

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, / Full of wise saws, and modern instances”. On a good day I can just about convince myself that’s me. Definitely the round belly bit. And if “wise

saws” means “being a wise guy on Twitter” then I’m your man. On a less good day I feel like I’ve fallen into the next category. “The sixth age shifts / Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

/ With spectacles on nose and pouch on side / . . . and his big manly voice, / Turning again toward childish treble”. A slippered pantaloon. I think you can find them in the Blue Harbour

leisurewear range in Marks & Spencer. Very comfortable. I recognise this fellow. I see him in the mirror most days. If I am being honest I am more often to be found in the sixth age than

the fifth. Advertisement Ultimately we know where we are heading. The seventh age of man brings “second childishness and mere oblivion; / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans

everything”. That is the destination. The question is how fast we get there. Me? I am taking my time. HUGH TURN I am loving Hugh Grant in _The Undoing _on Sky Atlantic. I was never convinced

by the movie persona of his 1990s heyday. The diffident, stammering, posh-but-loveable schtick of _Notting Hill_ and _Four Weddings and a Funeral_ never won me over. I much prefer him now

he has given up trying to be charming. His Jeremy Thorpe in the BBC drama _A Very English Scandal_ was delicious. And now, in _The Undoing_, he is totally convincing as a wealthy oncologist

with a glamorous New York high life and a dark secret. The same team produced _Big Little Lies _and shares with that 2017 series not only Nicole Kidman, who is reliably good as Grant’s

therapist wife, but also an unapologetic fascination with the lifestyles of the rich. Their lives may be vacuous and duplicitous but, boy, do they have a good eye for soft furnishings.

Advertisement ROLL UP, ROLL UP Looks like we need to stock up for a winter lockdown. Funny how one person’s panic-buying is another’s prudence. I am calling it forward planning, and anyone

who gives me dirty looks at the checkout can get lost. This time I am going for the good stuff. In addition to lavatory roll, pasta and tins of tomatoes I am going to fill a kitchen shelf

with the kind of exotic tinned foodstuffs you find in delis and which I have often suspected are simply there as colourful decoration, to give an impression of plenty. I am talking about all

those niche varieties of fish in oil; confits of long-dead birds; tall, murky jars of _soupe de poisson_; impractically large tins of cassoulet. Lockdown? Bring it on and pass the moutard.

@KENNYFARQ