60

I am indebted to my thoughtful family for a great party last week, the first leg of my 60th birthday. Their talents are many and varied, from practical maintenance to clothing, hairdressing, pharmacy, child-rearing, not to mention the recent addition of dancing and, as per this evidence, cake-making. Nothing quite as recondite as poetry. They might not all quite see the point of that and, come to think of it, maybe neither do I.
I hadn't expected a party until the two year old dancer mentioned there was a cake upstairs.
I am no more worthy of the consideration shown last week than I will be of the choice selection of friends making their way to Wincanton next week on the day for a miniature edition of This Is Your Life. Tune in next Wednesday evening as three old maestros put over 100 years of turf experience together to find you the winners on Wincanton Preview Night.

One of my very vague, and easily disprovable, theories is that poets don't reach anything like 'maturity' until the age of 30 and have finished by 60, only repeating themselves or rambling after that. Of course, Rimbaud had left it all behind well before 30, genuine superstars (Gunn, Muldoon) establish themselves with undergraduate work and there is plenty of fine work written by over-60's. But I stopped at 58, by the looks of it, just in case.
While there is a sense of loss that one doesn't do it anymore - and of course I could if I felt like it- there is also a sense of release. No more worrying about rhyme schemes, not being quite good enough or misplaced self congratulation. No more disappointment when people say they like that one when the best is obviously this one. No more suspicion that they were only trying to be polite in the first place.

So, where did it all go wrong, as the man in the hotel asked George Best. Perhaps it didn't. Perhaps it was fine and perhaps out of all the ages it seemed good to be (11,35,42), 60 is good, too. There may or may not be a book to write but not writing any of them would be an admirable exercise in restraint as well as saving the tiresome business of sitting here knocking it out. Not doing it would reduce my modest carbon footprint further and time is arguably better spent reading good books than writing bad ones.
Some of us will back winners at Wincanton and others might not. I landed the double yesterday only to give most of the winnings straight back on Battaash, the champion sprinter who reverted to unreliable mode. I can go down to the seaside and watch the tide come in, or go out, notice the phases of the Moon or Fulham and Nottinghamshire wandering up and down their league tables to no particular purpose. There will be Chichester Cathedral's lunchtime concerts on Tuesdays and Buxtehude's Opera Omnia and so it's not obvious that I need a box of Complete Bach Cantatas (72 discs) to give me something to do forever because I must set my lands in order and tidying this place up to make it passably respectable in case of visitors will take some time.

Our Gillian has offered Mick Fleetwood in this video as the latest contribution to the David Green Lookalike list. Mick got up and finished fourth behind Stanley Kubrick, Salman Rushdie and my own performance, staying on in the closing stages to claim third. The bloke from a band called Eels, Lytton Strachey and William Shakespeare also ran.

I might like being 60 as much as I did being 59. Eventually it's not worth worrying any more.