PASSPORT TOWARDS OBLIVION

One of the problems of having age another decade is the need to renew the passport, as it expires because it was renewed for that holiday in California I was given as a fortieth birthday present and, you know, the decade has flown.

This, of course, means the ghastly experience of having a photograph taken, and having to come to terms with the ravages of time courtesy of the unforgiving eye of the photo booth situated next to the public toilets in Stockport.

The entire experience was not enhanced by the heat of the morning and the running around required to reach that point in my day meaning that I was already sweating like a drain having convinced myself that I was "passable" before I left the house.

My general air of flusterment and bewilderdome was increased by the sudden appearance of an attendant who complained about the number of people who had trouble feeding coins into the machine, especially as it was one which refused to allow a coin return option having accepted three of the required five, but then insisted upon rejecting the following two.

I remain convinced that in the helpful exchange of coinage he involved himself with unannounced, he ended up a couple of quid in credit on the deal, but its hard to prove, and, to be honest, as I can't be sure, it's probably best to let it go, even though all of this was unlikely to help with the level of glamour I was already unlikely to achieve.

Then it was sit down on the swivelly stool, listen to the many instructions, centre my face in the oval graphic and hope that the fates would be kind and that I would remember to remove my spectacles as per the new regulations.

After the snapshot was taken, the first of three goes you get, apparently, it asked whether I was I happy with the image…? Well, I wasn't completely unhappy, I decided, and hit "print…" because I was so very desperate to get the hell out of that partially curtained version of hell.

There's an old Armando Iannucci sketch that I used to enjoy which is about forty-two year old men (and older), and how they need to get used to the fact that they've got to an age where nobody will ever look at them in that way again and how they can try to kid themselves that they've still got it (whatever "it" is…), to an almost ridiculous degree.

I was reminded of this upon seeing myself in such a brutal light in both that picture and another I took the other day on my camera phone as I was preparing myself for the ordeal of the passport booth experience, the same photo, incidentally, after which I decided a shave might not be the worst idea in order to slice off a year or two.

Mind you, thinking about it, and as far as I can recall, very few people ever looked at me in that way anyway when I was of an age where I might have at least hoped to turn the occasional head, perhaps because of the hippy-ish countenance I may have been presenting during those "vital years" (about which I have explained on at least one previous occasion in these very pages should you care to go and look - http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/hippy-me.html), but mostly because for most of my adult life I have resembled a hairy potato.

And yet, knowing all this, I still smiled at the girl in the summer dress as I entered the newsagents this morning, knowing full well that all that she would have seen was a slightly sad and crumbling older man gurning foolishly and wondering about where all the years had gone, presumably with an air of mild regret...

I always was an idiot…

Let's face it, I still am a idiot.

Only now I'm an idiot who can't even rely on good looks and charm to gain him a break or two…

Not that I ever did, of course.