Staff, songs and soaps all prove I’m showing my age

FINALLY we returned to the office. Not all of us, but a few of us started to use our new hub this week, and got to enjoy each other’s company, a change of scenery, creative collaboration and all the joys of commuting – on foot, by bus, or by car. It was great.

One of the real benefits of office life is being able to enjoy idle chatter, and through the art of conversation you find all sorts out about teams and individuals. In a particularly enjoyable conversation with one of our senior team leaders this week I discovered the sobering fact that both her parents are younger than me. “Actually, much younger,” she smiled. No one else in the office found this revelation even remotely surprising. I on the other hand had to go and sit down for a while as I realised that the passing of the years have meant that I have become the old guy who occasionally appears from the corner office. This probably should not have come as a surprise as for years I have found the very same things coming out of my mouth that used to drive me mad when Dad said them. It used to enrage me when I discovered a great new song, he would tell me that it was not a new song at all, but a poor version of an old one. He was always right, and that made it even more annoying. Goodness knows how long I’ve been saying the same thing – probably decades – but I am now firmly of the opinion that all new music is a poor re-write of earlier classics – though I did hear a brilliant Spanish version of The Times They Are A-Changing while watching Sons Of Anarchy the other day. The only thing I haven’t started doing yet is talking with rose-tinted glasses about the good old days. However I may have to start, and that is entirely due to my recent attempt to catchup on the new series of one of my favourite ever programmes, A Question of Sport.

I have been watching QoS since Emlyn and Gareth were the captains and David Coleman the master of questions. I have been through Botham and Beaumont, Carson, Dettori,

McCoist and was very happy with Dawson, Barker and Tufnell. I have always loved it, went through a period in my teens when I knew all the answers, and found it gently amusing and quietly calming. A bit like a favourite jumper. Obviously I was nervous when the change of presenter and captains was revealed last year, but I understand things need to develop and was confident the Beeb would manage change expertly like it always has done before.

Wrong! It’s a dreadful renewal, with new rounds that don’t work and a presenter who appears to know nothing about sport. This is a shame because the last game show I watched, Paddy McGuinness was presenting Take Me Out and he was quite brilliant. The new QoS is so bad I’d rather listen to Zoe Ball’s Radio 2

Breakfast Show – and that’s dreadful. You’d think the BBC – guardian of easy watching classics like Antiques Roadshow and Casualty – would know better. After all it has shown itself to be a master of “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” production on so many occasions. I weaned myself off the chronically addictive EastEnders about eight years ago, but flicked onto it last night when I couldn’t face any more new QoS. I was pretty sure half the characters I saw had left the programme, and some of them I thought were dead! But there was Cathy Beale, there was Janine, there was Kat Slater and there was Sonia Fowler. I might have to start watching again. I also successfully kicked the Coronation Street (a far superior soap) habit a few years back, but if they bring evil Pat Phelan back I’m in!