[tweetmeme source=”ChazGunningham” only_single=false]George Orwell once said you deserve the face you have when you are fifty. The ironic thing of course is that George only lived to 48. Well, so far, I have outlived him by a year, and as I enter my fiftieth year (can’t quite believe that) it makes one ponder, dear reader. Wisdom with age? Hardly, I find myself spending a few pregnant seconds searching for a word to end a sentence these days, and as Billy Connolly noted you start to make involuntary noises when you lift yourself out of a chair. Apart from that though, it’s a pretty good age, so I’ll take it (not that I have any choice).
Quite by chance a good mate (over for dinner tonight) posed a riddle to my children. A homeless man can make one cigarette out of 7 left over butts, so how many can make out of 49? I’ll leave you to ponder that one for a minute.
Back to being 49. In fact backto being 21. The last night of the Olympics in 1984 was also my 21st. 28 years and 7 Olympiads ago. I remember it so clearly. Dad stayed in the the room watching Daley Thompson, Carl Lewis and all, and I boogied with some pals in the dining room. Do I wish to go back to when I was 21? No, not really. In fact, not at all. Blissfully happy where I am, thank you very much. And looking forward to being 50 next year. Half a century. Wow. A few same aged mates have already booked our boy’s week in Melbourne and Sydney to watch the British and Irish Lions take on the Wallabys. I bet the next 12 months flies by. All I would wish for is a more consistent golf swing, but apart from that I would change nothing.
The cigarette riddle? In case you had not cracked it, the answer is 8. Yes, seven sevens are 49, but then once he’d smoked them he’d have an extra 7 butts to make an eighth. I got the answer over a birthday dinner, so the brain has not yet turned to cauliflower 🙂
