Battle of the ages won’t stop soon...

THE Collins dictionary recently put forward a shortlist of ten words, the winner of which would be chosen to encompass the spirit or essence of 2018.

The selection included terms such as floss, gammon, gaslight, singleuse and vegan, as well as a host of other terms I was half familiar with.

To be fair, I had to look some of them up! Take ‘gammon’ for instance; I thought it was a long forgotten exotic Tudor crisp flavour – but no. According the dictionary definition it’s “a person, typically male, middle-aged, and white, with reactionary views, especially one who supports the withdrawal of Britain from the European Union (noun).”

Givowwer! Now apart from sounding like half the gadgies that I’m related to or went to school with, it’s interesting to think who might be applying this clearly unflattering term. Without doubt, it’s the type of well-educated coffee-bar hipsters and academics of our more leafy and affluent suburbs. The type I’ve honestly heard saying “well Hugo, I’ve never met anyone who voted for Brexit.” In their world it’s true – everybody thinks like they do. After all, they’re the people who deserve a people’s vote.

It’s that old idea of the ignorant and unwashed masses, who need to be governed by an intellectual elite who really knows what’s best for them.

This tendency to live in an ‘echo chamber’ where you only associate with people who share your world view is an increasingly prevalent and unhelpful aspect of our society. It’s also unfair. Just cos you are a middle-aged bloke who looks a bit of a red-faced radgie, it’s unfair to slap a stereotyped world view on you. In fact, contrary to this gammon stereotype, I actually voted to remain, but as for the red-faced angry bloke bit – that’s surely true of most middleaged blokes of all cultures.

I remember meeting a Chinese taxi driver in Singapore, and within minutes we’d found common ground in radgie middle-aged dad topics – it’s universal! He bemoaned the fact he was working his backside off for a bunch of teenagers who took it all for granted. He raged eloquently as we headed downtown “I told them not to bother calling me dad any more – I’m changing my name to **** ing ATM machine!” Well put, my fellow radgie. I feel your pain...blokes our age have been complaining for millennia!

I’m sure many of my fellow midlife, gammon-labelled radgies can hear themselves bemoaning today’s ‘snowflake’ generation of millennials in the following quotes – “They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.” Or “we defy anyone who goes about with his eyes open to deny that there is, as never before, an attitude on the part of young folk which is best described as grossly thoughtless, rude, and utterly selfish.” Sound familiar? Well the first one comes from Aristotle in the 4th century BC, and the other from 1925.

The oldies and the youth have been trading insults since ancient times and I don’t see it stopping any time soon. Indeed, in 1984, I remember an unpleasant member of my generation in a mullet and a Le Breve shirt berating a middle-aged bus driver for being a “baldy auld gyet!” It would be perfect Karma for that idiotic youth to now be hairless and so similarly insulted by an idiotic modern equivalent.

So from a so-called ‘gammon’ or ‘square’ or ‘auld gyet’ to all the socalled ‘snowflakes’; someday, the 2048 Collins dictionary will have a special word for the youngsters to slag your generation off with too! Hope I’m around to be angry about it ...

■ Mike will be hosting a charity comedy evening at Number9 bistro on November 22 in support of Frank’s Fight.