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You know you're getting old when.......
help
As life moves on there are signs which tell us, without any chance of doubt, that we are getting older, going downhill, coming off the final bend or generally ready to turn off the lights, lock the door and depart gracefully. What is/are your particular tell-tale symptoms?
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Radio 2 plays all the music you used to listen to on Radio 1.
...having sex with someone half your age is a major coup instead of a crime.
... The urge to sleep becomes a daytime feeling while at night time there is no urge at all.
... You notice a tweed jacket in a shop window and seriously consider a purchase [Chalky] Apologies. But I dont notice the men on principal]
... and spot a fetching cap to wear with it.
You think thermal underwear is a good idea and wonder why more people don't wear it
You go shopping for 'a nice bit of fish for tea'
[Snodgrass] I was being rather too cynical rather than personal so no criticism was intended and no apology needed :-)
, having gone through a period of telling young people to behave to their faces, because you didn't care any more about being unpopular, you now avoid it because you think you'll get beaten up.
[Raak] The turning point is about 38 for men, 40 for women. I looked it up.
You don't care that you've never heard of the band your colleague went to see last night.
You rest on the chairs provided by ladies department of large stores....and not staring the lingerie.
You stop making plans for what you'll be doing in ten years' time
you go supermarket shopping before 9am. scaaary old people bothering me in the first half hour of my shift, beware.
Getting up in the night no longer means what it used to.
For you there is no such thing as Designer Stubble. I could go on, of course :-)
Dujon] I don't think that one counts. That's a very studenty thing.
[Tuj] It was deliberately ambiguous. You are obviously too young.    ;-)
A pregnant lady offers you her seat on the 'bus.
You've got friends like Dujon. Forgive me.
. . . but older [Rosie] No! Gotcha.
Ye cannot read the cussid newspaper without holding it at arms length.
You need one pair of glasses to look for the other pair. I've watched my parents both do this this morning. nice to be home.
When policemen's faces all look young to you, apparently (OK, Dujon, maybe I am. But he's not, surely?).
When you are continually delighted about how reliable modern cars are.
When you find yourself nodding in agreement with the hangers and floggers in the Any Questions? audience.
...when you run out of advice for your children and just accept you really don't know any more.
...you finally accept that not only are you not part of the younger generation, you're not even part of their parents' generation.
Your creeping long-sightedness starts to cancel out the shortsightedness you used to suffer from
You resign yourself to the fact that none of the things that have gone wrong with your body are ever going to be fixed.
You pay off a 25-year mortgage.
...you think school uniform and faith-based schools are probably a good idea
Those old clothes that you do the gardening in are trendy again.
Never mind hours in the day, there aren't enough hours left in your life to read all of Terry Pratchett.
You stay up until 1am to watch a documentary about The Magic Roundabout on BBC4.
...you feel the need to tell everyone that you stayed up till 1am. *toothless grin*
You listen to Radio 4 all day.
... you listen to talk radio and talk back my addiction to talksport still raging
You realise there are entire nations younger than you.
...you stop caring about how you'll be remembered
au contraire, Projoy. You start caring about how you'll be remembered.
No, no. Your teens and twenties are the time when you care about your legacy, because those are the years where it looks as if you might actually achieve something of note. :)
No, no... you're confusing teenage ego with the development of a truly noteworthy talent! Or maybe this is just me?
You develop delusions of grandeur.
What you view as nostalgia, your colleagues view as history.
...you never say "that's a novel idea" any more.
You view household plants as members of your family.
The woman across the table has crows feet in the corners of her eyes, a little-to-medium second chin and a couple of droopy bits - and you are still attracted to her.
"Sex" is just another word.
You suddenly realize that a cardigan really does have its advantages.
Your waistcoat starts to look more like a bra.
When your old belts now hold up tomato plants instead of your trousers.
The creak of your knees leads you to think that the floorboards are in need of attention.
You may not be able to remember your daughter's name but you can describe every boyfriend she ever had.
. . . A car becomes something to dodge, not something to drive.
. . . You have two cups of coffee and you're anybody's.
... You can't remember how to unbutton your zip.
You can't sit down to a meal without thinking of the enormous quantity of food you must have eaten over all those decades. All that chewing and swallowing, year after year!
Going to the library is the highlight of your week
Last of the Summer Wine reflects your choice of lifestyle.
You forget bold tags twice in the same game.
Toys that you played with as a child often turn up on Antiques Roadshow
You hold your teeth in your hand as you brush them. [toothless grin]
- You look forward to going to bed to sleep.
You know all the solutions to all the episodes of Murder, She Wrote
You can spend a whole morning writing a letter and taking it to the Post Office.
You find that peer pressure has significantly reduced.    I stole that one; the first time ever ... sorry.
You think Salisbury is in Southern Rhodesia. (Falstaff) Shurrup!
The phrase "To be or not to be ..." becomes more than just a literary quotation.
- You can add numbers quicker in your head than on a pocket calculator.
You begin every other sentence with the words "In my day..."
You can have a nap after lunch without being disturbed
[Raak, re: Post Office] Blimey. I must be older than I thought.
You keep noticing that you're older than you thought.
You feel that a video game needs at least four hands to be played.
You feel that videogames have never been the same since colour and sound was introduced.
You understand specifically what the "everything" refers to in "sans eyes, sans taste, sans teeth, sans everything."
You don't care any more if you sound like a Tory.
You feel that pinball has never been the same since flippers were introduced.
Nothing impresses you.
(well, this means you're either old or a teenager)
You have a great idea for a posting in a game but then something distracts you and you think of something else for a second and ... um, ... where was I?
You smile indulgently after you fart, saying "pardon", but not really meaning it.
You get irritated by people who talk in like up-speak?
You smile into the mirror and a stranger is frowning back at you. *sigh*
- you are able to remember things that happened in the '60's clearer than last week.
When you have to admit the truth of "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, I am my father after all"
When you still refer to something built in 1965 as "the new . . . ."
- When you can't be bothered to upgrade your mobile unless its broke.
When a new piece of technology is already obsolete by the time you notice it.
You vote
High Court judges seem to be getting younger.
Your defence lawyer describes you as 'an innocent elderly gentleman/spinster'
It's not the flies that bother you it's those pesky things which you see out of the corner of an eye that you think are flies.
An allotment is only 6' x 3' x 6'.
All the good jazz musicians are dead.
Lowering the tone a bit: Rigor Mortis is the only way to get it up. ---- *slam!*
You just don't give a damn anymore.
- You have a good crop of hair everywhere except on your head
Breakfasttime seems to come round again ever so fast
You used to like snow, but not any more. (Dujon) Fear not. There are some brilliant young ones around.
The place for chat with old friends is the chemist's and not the barber's.
When your wife says she has a headache she means it.
You have to sit down to put on your socks.
The only way you can tell what gender someone is is by their clothes.
You cannot rise up from or relax down into a chair without making a noise [grunt!] Disavower: some sounds may vary from others and might cause the grandchildren to giggle.
You realise your kids are older than the girls you're looking at in the pub.
You start to think that Frank Sinatra probably did have a reasonable voice.
In youth, you can do more and better things each year than you could the previous year. In old age, it is the reverse.
When contemplating doing anything new you wish you didn't know now what you didn't know when younger. (Raak) Not entirely true . . . . :-)
You take more drugs than a teenager but these keep you alive rather than hasten your death
You tell your friends how good Radio 2 has become.
You buy a drink for the sweet young thing chirruping on the barstool beside you and she responds with: ["Thanks Pops"]!!!
[Falstaff] And you respond: "Pardon?" :-)
You can remember when Tony Blackburn broadcast from a boat in the Thames.
You start thinking that you've reached middle age.
You stop looking after your children and start looking after your parents
[Projoy] That's middle age. Old is when your children look after you.
It's a bit late for suicide
You are genuinely pleased to receive socks as a birthday present.
You are genuinely pleased to have made it to another birthday
You are resigned to radical life-extension technology not arriving in time for you.
You really do need reading glasses. It creeps up on you. :-(
People referring to your age begin to say you're so many years young. It happened to me the other day. Bah!
...and tell you you're looking very well.
High Court judges start looking young. (Softers) NO!
When your arms are no longer long enough to read a newspaper. [Rosie] this is the marker :-)
You start making repeat postings about the age of High Court Judges
You start making repeat postings about the age... you're too slow on the drawer not to get simulposted
You forget which is right out of draw and drawer, and you don't care any more.
You're smaller than your pants.
Warming to the theme, Your underwear covers more of your body than your entire daywear collection used to conceal.
You actually go to a Well Man Clinic. Well, I might, sometime, if I remember. (Kim) They are not identical. :-)
....and they refer you to a priest.
You get chatted up by schoolgirls, just practising. it has happened . . . .
You get chatted up by mothers whose children have left home, for real Not yet, thank God.
The undertaker starts tipping his hat to you in passing.
You wish you had enough hair to get dandruff.
You finally accept that both greying hair and lack of hair are natural and begin to treat such as badges of honour.
You worry when you find that part of your skin isn't wrinkled.
The tiniest scratch takes weeks to heal.
When youffs on the train refer to you as "Grandad".
your CV is thirty pages long, typed up on a word-processor, and stops in 1987.
you have fogotten how to do bold tags
(if you look at the source for that last one it is even funnier - which wouldn't be hard)
You've worked out most of the rules of Mornington Crescent
Or more likely when You've forgotten all the rules of MC that you used to know.
You remember William Hartnell as the Doctor and think that no-one since has come close.
You can remember watching the last game which won England The Ashes.   Sorry, sorry, unfair, I know.
The Queen Mother kicks in the viagra.
You can remember when The Long Game started.
People around you start whispering the word "conclave" sorrysorrysorry
Every other discussion where your friends and acquaintances are mentioned usually involves the phrase "of course, he/she's not around any more"
O-Levels and A-Levels still sound new-fangled
You still count money in 'bob' Although to be fair, thanks to healthy Jimmy Clitheroe exposure as a child I still do this
You agree life just hasn't been the same since commercial televisionAnd how can you watch 2 BBC channels at once?
You still think aids should make things better They can't all be funny
*twigs* or spelt correctly
You still refer to Coca-Cola as "that Yankee drink"
You still refer to coke as "that Yankee drink"
You have a 17-inch TV and need to squint to see it properly
You can remember when you needed to squint at the TV because the screen was smaller than the average matchbox
You can actually remember watching the 1966 World Cup - as it happened
You think O and A levels as an educational qualification not a service
The Bypass means something rather more than the road that avoids the town centre.
The ties hanging in your wardrobe are fashionable.
You remember at least ten of the fashions currently in vogue from the first time round....and the celebrities who started them look like your grandmother
People never speak up properly.
You can remember when The Long Game started.
You can remember when this game started Time for a conclusion?
[pen] I did attempt it back there a bit, but there appears to be an unremarked nonstandard winning move.
[Projoy] Let's try this... You die
You pop your clogs
You kick the bucket
I'm on the wrong track, obviously...
You start a game and forget to tell anyone what the winning move is
You don't have any fillings! Or, admittedly, any natural teeth
All your junk mail comes from the local funeral director
No. Looks like I've lost the plot.
You realise that the game of life is one which you actually CAN'T win ! [Pen & Pro] I see what you mean - Who started this one anyway?
Everything you do is things you've always done.
You could care less about the winning move, you are just happy to be playing the game. ["Hit me again, Sam ..."]
Your early life is recorded in Shakespeare's plays.
[Snodgrass] It wasn't you, then, prior to posting the first move?
You turn to the "Birth's, Marriages and Deaths" column in the local newspaper before reading anything else, but don't know anyone in the "Birth's" or "Marriages" sections.
You listen to the wireless, play LPs on a gramophone, and drive a motor car.
"... you have such difficulty climbing out of chimney no. 372,797,742 that you decide to knock off early, you toss your sack into the nearest thrift store donation bin, and exhaust the evening on lap dances and cheap booze, while out on the curbside Rudolf et al. get gunned down in a driveby gangland shooting."
You don't find the previous posting terribly funny, really.
You let strangers into your house to check for an electricity leak
You're not sure how many children you have.
You need to write everything down or you'll forget.
You forget where you wrote everything down.
You have to visit Batman weekly in the Old Superheroes' Home
You have finally mastered your Indian guide's native tongue and discover `kemosabe' is "an Apache expression for a horse's rear end .
You no longer say "what did I come up here for?" because you simply cannot get up here any more. Not yet, boys and girls. :-)
You forget to read the piece of paper you wrote everything down on.
Upon investigating why your hearing aid doesn't work you remove it from your ear to discover it is not your hearing aid but a suppository and you ask yourself: "Now what do you suppose I've done with my hearing aid?"
How do I get onto the internet? Can any one email me the answer? My adress is 34 Walkers Rd. Harrogate. HG1 4NJ in the UK ... Thank you ever so much.
[It's my bike] Your postcode is wrong. That's Swarcliffe Road. You can't get onto the internet from there. Walk around the corner into Knaresborough Road and catch the bus.
The amount of exercise you're fit enough to do is no longer enough to maintain your fitness.
You find your first grey pube. [Raak: Henry Ford said "Exercise is bunk; if you're fit, you don't need it and if you're not, you shouldn't attempt it".]
You can name ALL the artists who FIRST recorded every single record in this week's Top 40, and cannot understand why people dance to these 40 ghastly remakes. And of course your children, being "too bloody young", can't even remember the forty artists who remixed them for LAST WEEK's Countdown.
You can't even remember what colour your pants where before they turned this attractive shade of grey.
You still think of Videos as "New Fangled Technology", while DVDs are "Witchcraft and Heresy".
You actually think OTHER PEOPLE understand what "Fangling" is, and have ever used the word since 1951.
you'll describe a Gay TV Presenter, such as Graham Norton or Dale Winton, as "that nice young man," and consider it, "a shame he's not found the right woman."
at weddings, you'll say to young spinsters, "I expect it'll be you next."
at funerals, THEY say that to you.
They open the carton and pour you down the drain.
You think CAMREC are a bunch of anarchists.
You dial 911 and greet the dispatcher with "I've fallen and I can't get up."
You dial 911.
Your neighbours only realise that they haven't seen you for a while when maggots start crawling out of your letterbox
When your grandchildren have to potty-train you.
You start shopping around for spare parts.
You have a box in your garage in which you can find anything to fix something
You spend most of every morning getting out of bed and fit to face the world.
You think this game is fast-moving
You've already thought of half of the moves in this game before they were posted [st d - try killing it and see what happens; it's the game that won't die!]
You spend your days looking for bargains on discounted coffins on e-bay.
You and your 55-year old grandson sit down and swap stories on 'the good old days
Your contemporaries have become High Court Judges.
Your waistline has crept up to within centimeters of your nipples. [Meanwhile laughter erupts in the Elysian Fields as St Peter demonstrates his signature wedgie to another school of cherubic recruits.]
There is a noise of hammering, then ray of sunlight appears. A silhouetted figure comes into sight whom you later discover to be Howard Carter.
Your breakfast is mostly tablets
You to Mick Jagger as "that young whippersnapper".
should have read You refer to Mick Jagger as "that young whippersnapper".
It's more than five seconds between you getting to your feet and starting to walk off
Your compatriots who referred to you as "Hop-along-Cassidy" now call you "Hobble-along-Cassidy.
Your wee (urine) begins to smell like a bowl of sugar puffs!!!
Your wee is too wee to smell like anything.
You are mercifully spared from toothaches, having no teeth left to ache.
You realise that, when he/she says "Shall we go upstairs and have sex?", you'll only be able to manage one or the other.
Your damn hearing aid sucks, so that when he/she says "Shall we go upstairs and have sex?" you hear "Do you know where the heck are my specs?", to which you reply "No, dear".
You can't fine the stairs to your bed room even though you have lived in a ground floor flat for the last 40 years!
You can't tell whether it's your knees or the stairs that are creaking.
The Sexpistols and The Buzzcocks are getting played on Radio 4!!!!
You blame the viagra for your eyesight going.
You can't even remember what you're taking the Viagra for.
We're suspiciously good at this game, in my opinion.
[SM] We'll only get better at it too. I'm going to the garden centre today in my LUNCH HOUR ffs, to prepare the garden for my 40th party... yikes.
It doesn't help any more to ignore your round-numbered birthdays.
Your reflection in the mirror resembles the Plasticine (or Playdoh to the Yanks) human figures you made in Kindergaten class
"Whats that ye say, dearie........yes.....yessss......it is getting cold in here."
You stay up at night deciding whether you should talk about your lumbago or your arthritis with your friends at tomorrow's bridge game
Your back goes out more than you do. Ouch.
You stop feeling seventeen.
You stop feeling seventeen-year-olds. oblig
You stop feeling.
You stop and forget why you've stopped
Life in the slow lane seems pretty fast to you.
You realise you'll never do the things you always thought of trying some time.
You stop to think ... and forget to start again.
You think you had, but you hadn't
You die.
You look for the latest news of your friends in the death announcements column of the local paper.
You are surprised each morning not to find your own name in the obituary columns of the local newspaper
... it's all gone dark and quiet and cold. Or is that marriage?
Or even, ... its all gone dark and quiet and cold. Or is that marriage?
*shouts, screams, generally goes wild for rab*
Not only a completely unguessable winning move, but one with a apostrophical error. Grrr.
...you return to find that the game has ended.
Want to play? Online Crescenteering lives on at Discord