Old Age, Tapping Up, and the Gentle Art of Self Congratulation

I read somewhere that “old people” are always assumed to be 10-15 years older than one's actual age. Thus if you are 12-years-old, then a twenty-five-year-old is a candidate for a zimmer frame and totally over the hill. If you are 50 years old, then a sixty-five-year-old is a real “ancient”, and so on.

This was driven home today when the young lions in my office (two of them, collective age less than 40) looked at my computer problems. Both the Fat Rabbit (what a name to call one’s only son, bless him) who knows everything there is to know about computing, and the daughter’s boyfriend, who is a highly paid and experienced computer engineer (collective ages around 67), had both performed miracles in recovering lost data and programs on my 100% crashed office computer. However, neither could reconnect the publishing system that operates my business despite hours of effort. The young lions, needless to say, chatted amongst themselves for a couple of minutes and came up with a solution which gave me workable access to the publishing system almost immediately. They just reckoned that Matthew and Brant were a bit past it.

One could rant about the Chelsea/Ashley Cole “tapping up” scandal and a total fine fine equivalent to the National Debt of Brazil (or a week’s salary for Rio Ferdinand) ad nauseum, but I shall only trouble my long-suffering readers with the following questions:

What, for heavens sake, is wrong with chatting (informally) to a player from another club? Isn’t it better to get a rough idea if a player is the slightest bit interested in changing club before getting his employer all excited? Down the corridor an employee from another company was recently “tapped up” and will shortly tell his employers that he is leaving to earn more as a delivery driver. I “tapped up” one of my young lions before offering him a job. Are crimes being committed here because in neither case was the employer formally asked for permission to make an approach? Bah, hokum, Football Association rubbish!

My last thought is on the subject of “self congratulation”. I was reminded by a quick shimmy through the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday at the weekend about the importance of saying “how wonderful” you are at every opportunity. How wonderful the Mail was to have told their readers that France would say “Non!”; how brilliant they were to have picked West Ham for the Premiership; and to have sensationally introduced (yes, bag lady, I know when I split an infinitive, but I split it well!) Sudoku puzzles to the British public; and to have been the very first newspaper anywhere to tip Malcolm Glaser to take control of Manchester United; etc.; etc.

All those years ago when I worked for a mega-corp publishing house, every employee was expected to circulate congratulatory memos for virtually any fatuous reason. It’s probably the reason I’m now a worthless old bookseller rather than a Lord Gnome. But I guess there is a certain satisfaction in that.