Forget grandpa! Be a cool glamfather
When Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon decided to announce the birth of his first grandchild, a baby boy called Taro, it was clear that one salient fact had just struck him. The 59-year-old singer was now to be referred to as, he tweeted, “THE GLAMFATHER!”
This was a smart move. Le Bon is by no means the first rock ’n’ roller to reach this milestone — Keith Richards and Mick Jagger both have five grandchildren, Jagger even has a great-grandchild, but both just keep on rocking. Former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant has five, too, while Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne has eight. Yet Le Bon was making an early bid to rebrand society’s view of Old Pa, immortalized in the novelty song Granddad by British comediansinger Clive Dunn in 1970, which has him sitting in a rocking chair, lamenting, “Now my days are gone, memories linger on ...”
I became a grandfather at 44. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great — but I still gulp slightly when people tell me I “don’t look old enough” to be a granddad.
OK, I don’t purport to be full-on glam — I’ve never worn a feather boa, or appeared in a pop video. But I am cool, honestly, I am. I mean, I like Aphex Twin, I’ve danced to The Black Madonna, I walk home from parties at 6 a.m. (promise). I’m not ready for that rocking chair, let alone a Werther’s Original. But old age, I hear, has a habit of creeping up on you, so retaining your edge in the face of numerous children calling you pops (or worse) is a must.
Here are some telltale signs you’re more glamps than gramps:
When you start choosing rap
■
songs on PlayStation karaoke games to stand a chance of winning against your grandchild, because you can at least read the words faster than someone who is six and yet to master picture books. And because it makes up for losing 20 times in a row when you’re both singing a One Direction song, which frankly seems like a veiled insult before the music even starts playing.
When it’s your soccer-obsessed
■
grandchild who falls asleep after an hour’s kickabout with you in the park, and you can still send a picture of him to his dad and say: “This boy’s shattered after playing a football match against a top (Premier League) player.”
When one of your grandchildren
■ shouts out “Granddad!” to you loudly for the first time in a public place, and you’re wearing really good threads, but you can see that everyone in the locale is thinking about how old you are, and you have to keep nudging the child, and saying “it’s Glamfather, actually.”
When you receive a recording
■
from one of the sproglets singing an elaborate rendition of the word “poo” to you on WhatsApp, and you notice the similarity between that and the tune of an obscure ’80s top hit, which you promptly send back to them, with the explanation, “Same melody.” They reply, “What the heck?” It cuts you to the core.
When your soccer-obsessed
■
five-year-old grandson tells you he dreamt that the world was full of soccer balls, and everyone was playing soccer, and the Earth was a big soccer ball that had been bicycle-kicked through space, and you think, that’s all very well, but where do rock ’n’ roll and good shoes fit into this vision of the universe?
When a grandchild is being
■
cheeky, or flatulent, or dropping in the latest swear word they picked up at school, but using it wrong, and you just laugh because, honestly, parenting is for parents, and grandparenting is so much more fun.
When you take them out for the
■
first time on a paddle boat on a lake and you have the impulse to stand at the bow, wearing a pastel suit, and sing “her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.”