Tom Utley catches the Middle Age Experience wonderfully well in this DT
piece.
I am just where Tom is, irritated by everything. Special irritations:
celebrities (all of them); TV (wellnigh all of it); current pop music
(gaaaarrrrgh!); warning labels (my son favors a breakfast cereal
that comes with a warning label!); current fiction, poetry, drama,
liturgy, art, sculpture, and architecture; the “like” construction for
reported speech (“I was, like, wow…” — but I think Tom catches that
one too); people who want me to say “Mumbai,” “Myanmar,” and “Guangzhou”
for Bombay, Burma and Canton,…
Perhaps Tom & I are suffering from Spode’s Syndrome.