PONYTAILS OF THE UNEXPECTED
THERE were jubilant scenes outside the Houses of Parliament last night as men’s welfare groups celebrated a cross-party parliamentary committee’s decision to overhaul outdated laws governing male MIDLIFE CRISES in England and Wales. The changes will come into effect from next year and could affect up to 6 million middleaged men with diminishing levels of male sex hormones.
The sweeping changes are expected to pass through the Commons unopposed, and will bring the male midlife crisis into the 21st century.
OUT will go dated goatee beards, tattoos, braided bracelets, and functional alcoholism. IN will come carbon fibre racing bikes, along with undersized lycra tops, tongue piercings, anal bleaching and spouting uninformed incoherent bollocks on Twitter.
“Britain has a long and proud tradition of increasingly reckless, embarrassing and foolhardy behaviour from its middleaged men,” committee chairman, Hector Mantovani told lobby reporters. “Field Marshal Montgomery had ‘Mild’ and ‘Bitter’ tattooed around his nipples on his 42nd birthday, whilst Alan
Titchmarsh’s botched Prince Alber t is the stuff of legend.”
“Out of the blue, middle-aged men find themselves forced to confront the insignificance of their mundane existence, coupled with their inevitable demise, and we should support them in their futile attempts to recapture a largely misremembered youth,” he said.
BALD
The report said the committee recognises the challenges faced by an increasingly ageing population, and accepts that British mid-life crisis laws have remained largely unaltered since the 1980s. Sweeping changes were felt necessary to enable Britain’s stressed and confused middle-aged men to enjoy a ‘World-beating’ crisis fit for the 21st century.
The report was welcomed across the house, with Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak promising additional funding. “We’re pledging to invest £1billion over the next two years to ensure British men’s outward displays of their borderline nervous breakdowns will be the envy of the world,” he said.
There were also suggestions of raising the qualifying age limit for having a male mid-life crisis from its current 49 to 55. According to the report, this would allow individuals more time to complete a full blown, public display of age-related psychiatric meltdown. But the committee also recommended that several key tropes should remain firmly in place.
“Some things will not be changed by the new bill,” Mantovani assured reporters. “Sporting a ponytail, despite being otherwise as bald as a coot will remain the cornerstone of the mid-life crisis,” he said.
“And deser ting a long suffering wife in favour of a gold-digging stunner half your age will be ring-fenced, along with making a spectacle of yourself by dressing up like a Power Ranger and riding a ludicrously powerful motorcycle which bears no resemblance to the Yamaha 50cc FSIE you last rode in 1980,” he added.