Its great being 60. You get free tube travel. And… and… and…

You get to shit on a stick.

That’s it really. You’re suddenly old and two really big things happen. One is free transport (ONLY in London, the rest of the country, the ones that don’t count, have to wait til they’re 62), the other is that everything that hasn’t already fallen apart immediately starts to do so. And ‘they’ worry about you.

Every year brings about a new worry. You’ve crossed some threshold and gained entry into a brand new group of ‘at risks’. And at 60 its bowel cancer. So literally, the day after my birthday a letter came from the NHS. A big letter. I picked it up. “What’s this shit now”, I asked of no-one (you talk to yourself a lot at 60). And shit it was. Or, more precisely, very precise instructions how to shit. So they can test you. Without having to soil any NHS toilet facilities. In the comfort of your own home. Then you just post it off. Easy peasy.

Well, fairly easy. The ‘samples’ they require are tiny. And shit is, generally, much bigger than the quarter-inch square windows supplied. Hence the sticks. For transportation purposes. I’ll spare you the rest of the details. You’ll find out when you’re 60. If you have a wife like mine, ever vigilant, who wouldn’t let you just throw the thing in the bin.

So two guys, (above), are shopping in Sainsburys. Holding hands. In case anyone could be in any doubt that these 2 are gay. They couldn’t look any gayer if they were wearing tutus and Arsenal shirts.

A security guard called them over because someone had complained about their ‘behaviour’. Asked them to act properly, or some such.

He shouldn’t have done. Sainsburys should know better. The ‘complaint’ was either just because it was 2 men holding hands, in which case that is discrimination and illegal. Or it was about anyone holding hands in public, in which case the complainant should be immediately removed from society and shot.

There are so many public displays of anger, aggression, of road rage, shouting, screaming, fighting, how on earth can it be wrong to act in a perfectly innocent, in no way ‘inappropriate’ or even mildly offensive, display of affection? In who’s eyes can that be wrong. Unless its the gay thing, then the complaining asshole has transcended ‘wrong’ and entered ‘discriminatory’.

The gay and lesbian community held a ‘kiss-a-thon’ at the store in protest. A brilliant response. And Sainsburys gave the two guys a £10 voucher off the price of condoms. Ok, just a voucher. To say sorry.

I should think so too.

Happy Monday,

A xxxx