I am getting older.
Not such a shocking revelation, I suppose, given my state of continued existence. But beyond the statement of simple biological fact is something else: the grim acknowledgement that as time goes marching on, I am turning into one of those people that I used to mock.
As child and teenager, anyone over the age of twenty-five belonged to a special category of human being: that of the uniformly ancient and dull. Whether bent double by a spine contorted into a question mark by old age, or leaning into the mirror with a poking of fingers at skin and bemoaning the appearance of another line or two, the world of grown-ups was one in which people – despite their varying shapes and sizes – were quite simply old. These horrendous people would do excruciatingly boring things that made me grit my teeth in frustration, while I sat there inwardly glowing at my enlightened outlook on the world. They would talk at length about their younger lives while swilling gin in an iced glass; they would criticise almost all forms of popular culture as being something uncouth and vulgar; they would complain almost without end about the simpler pleasures of life back then, before technology came rushing into the void at the centre of our lives to fill it with the auditory and visual equivalent of being constantly poked in the eye.
It is with perverse delight that I’m able to admit that I have become one of them. Ah yes: at the wise old age of twenty seven I’m a veteran of nostalgia who loudly complains that most commercial TV is the death rattle of civilised Britain while revelling in the delights of Strictly Come Dancing and a good gin and tonic. The adverts in the cinema are definitely too loud, thank you very much, chart pop music is an abomination not worth my time, and who on earth would want a Kindle when you can read a book? If there is a clause in the ageing contract which states that becoming a luddite is an inevitable part of the process, I certainly wasn’t aware of it until now.
Which brings me to the corded telephone.
What a marvellous contraption, and simple too: small, just portable enough, and it plugs into the wall. When it rings, I always know where it is (a blessing when you have a handbag as disorganised as mine), and it doesn’t bombard me with banal ‘I’m five minutes late’ messages, either. Yes, my iPhone connects me to the world in an amazingly intrusive way, and I know I’ll be grateful when I need to make a call from a glen somewhere after my leg is trapped under a falling tree in a freak accident, but when it comes to the simple pleasure of making a phone call, I’ll take the landline every time. Instead of hearing messages and other calls pinging in as I talk while all the time my ear gets hotter and hotter, I can stretch out on the sofa with the corded telephone handset pleasingly clutched in my hand and relax in a way that my mobile phone won’t let me. A phone call used to be something to be savoured and enjoyed while time ebbed away without the worry about free minutes running out, or the fear of waking up at fifty with a cauliflower-like tumour sprouting from my ear.
Settling down in my armchair with my night cap, there are certain things that I know for sure: that leggings are a fashion abomination, that I have no idea who Jessie J is, and that my money’s on Harry Judd to win Strictly this year. Another thing I’m sure of is that the next time I have to make a phone call to that someone important in my life, I’ll be reaching for the corded telephone because sometimes the old way is the best way, and because sometimes in this rush of modernity there’s nothing better than taking time to give a friend or relative the attention that they deserve. I’ll remember the thrill of wondering if the other person would be in to pick up the phone, the nerves of hearing a parents voice at the other end of the line, and the languid joy of talking for hours because there was time for the conversation to drift.
I’m a stickler for nostalgia, after all.
