A few years back I made my first (and so far only, though I'm open to offers) visit to San Francisco. I immediately fell in love with the city, so reminiscent of Merseyside where I grew up and now dotted with grey-haired men with pony tails who haven't quite grasped that the 60s are over. The ghosts of numerous guitars peopled a landscape I knew from documentaries, and when I stood inside the City Lights bookshop, why, it was as if Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac were about to walk in at any moment.
There was a bit of that nostalgia in BBC2's mini-series 'Grumpy Old Men', though it was a shock to find that their definition of 'old man' was one aged 35-54. This, 'the group that thought the world was going to get better - only it got worse', was judged to be the age group that grumbled more than its parents and more than its children. A strange feeling, to see a TV programme about old men and realise they're all younger than oneself. But not by very much, I hasten to add.
Quiet men
The programme presented a group of professional media people such as Sir Bob Geldof, Will Self, John Peel, Arthur Smith, Rick Wakeman, Sir Bob Geldof and John Sessions, and, with a rather good linking voice-over by Geoffrey Palmer, collected their views on topics ranging from politics to Starbucks coffee. Palmer commented: 'Grumpy old men are a hitherto silent majority É But they are no longer suffering in silence!' Well, as we know, it wasn't a good month for quiet men, even if they'd belatedly decided to turn up the volume.
