Rubbing our noses in the happiness of the over-50s

Enough about the over-50s

Enough about the over-50s. What about the commuting, despairing 30-somethings who are mortgaged to the hilt, asks Anthea McTeirnan

Give us a break, will you? We all know that people in their 50s are the most important cohort of humans ever to grace the planet. We just don't need our noses rubbed in it.

As if they don't get enough opportunity to set the economic and political agenda, thanks to The Irish Times/TNS mrbi 50+ survey we have now been railroaded into ploughing through days of analysis of their points of view.

We now know what they think of politics, money, food, religion, work. . . Let's just be grateful the pollsters stayed outside the bedroom, 'cos if fellow 50-something Sting is anything to go by, they're all getting tantric on the top of the wardrobe.

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Of course, the survey scientifically assembled its sample group also to include those in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, but we all know who's setting the agenda. Let's just say it wasn't people in those age brackets who commissioned the whole self-serving debacle.

It wasn't the rest of us either. We're too busy sitting in traffic jams on the M50 worrying if little James and Rachel will remember us by the time we get home and whether the local Chinese will report us to social services if we purchase one more takeaway from them this week.

When newsreader Anna Ford complained about getting the thin end of the wedge after a run of 27 years (that's 27 years Anna, thank you very much, not a fortnight) she complained about younger people without "lines on their faces" getting all the plum presenting jobs.

Er hello Anna, but take a good look around you. For every chirpy blonde on kids television there's an ageing celebrity who refuses to stand aside and give a younger colleague a break.

Noel Edmonds is rocking afternoon TV with his über gameshow Deal or No Deal, Bruce Forsyth is polishing his shoes for another series of Strictly Come Dancing and Chris Tarrant, well Chris Tarrant, what shall we say . . . after "entertaining" what his wife called a "wealthy, desperate Surrey housewife" in a bar recently, thereby proving that wisdom and age can be mutually exclusive, Mr Tarrant is still at the top of his Millionaire game, if not in the height of marital good health.

But they're not content with squatting rights on popular light entertainment shows, oh no. Fifty- and 60-somethings (yep in this particular instance you lot are just as guilty) raised their flag over the fertile land that is the music industry years ago - and it's one colony that they're not handing back to its rightful owners without a struggle.

If I hear one more bedraggled, wrinkly bloke with a guitar, especially a best-selling, bedraggled, wrinkly bloke with a guitar - stand up Mr Bob Dylan (65) - I am going to scream.

The over-50s are buying more CDs than ever. With that dwindling mortgage and burgeoning disposable income they're generously supporting almost-pensioners like the Rolling Stones to fill stadiums across the globe and encouraging other groups of once-weres back on to the road to plague us with their back catalogues and to oust youthful, just-on-the-verge-of-making it bands from decent venues.

So far, so nothing to feel sorry for them at all.

Yet, given the space afforded by The Irish Times over-50 fest, you would have thought that the poor things were some sort of disenfranchised, disaffected minority whose views got only an occasional airing.

Older people - well, you lot lumped yourself in there - are a disparate group, spanning, in this survey's terms, some 50-plus years.

So for every 80-something sitting in front of a single-bar electric fire in Co Leitrim, there's a 52-year-old in Ranelagh haggling over the price of marinated olives in the farmers' market.

Common ground? I don't think so.

There's one thing for certain, however: the over-50s are "happier" than ever with their lot.

What they weren't asked is, on what day of the week are they most happy?

Bet you it's bloody Thursday, when The Irish Times property supplement hits the streets. Nothing better than a nice cup of tea, a scone and a quick calculation of your spiralling equity. Hoorah.

Jealous?

Jealous of this 50-something generation with their multi-million euro redbricks, SUVs, stay-at-home spouses, apartments in Fuengirola, children getting a free ride through college with a flat purchased with some freed-up dosh from the pile in Donnybrook?

Jealous? Moi?

Yeah, okay, that's a stereotype . . . but so's the suburban semi-D- dwelling, commuting, childcare- flustered, mortgaged-to-the-hilt, despairing 30-something.

And there's a lot of truth in that one. It seems that what the younger generations have to look forward to now is a life where 50 is constantly the new 40, and 60 the new 50 . . . where the "important" generation is constantly shifting the goalposts up the park so they remain forever unattainable to younger pretenders.

Yet we have a lot to thank you for. . . Botox, Viagra, the prevalence of estate agents, Helen Mirren, Pat Kenny. I could go on, but I'm destroying my own argument . . .

Anyway, next time out, the pollsters might take the trouble to find out how happy the under-50s are. Don't expect such a good response, though; we're all too knackered to fill out the forms.