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People seem to be living their lives backwards and 80 is the new 60 "

up to a half hour's sober sociological study.

If Pat is right, the arithmetical logic leads tote probability that 20 is the new 10 . It explains if true, why the young are leaving secondary school in a more infantile condition than when they entered it: illiterate, inarticulate and keen on chucking rocks at cars

It explains too why theoretically educated people on TV quizes are incapable of saying where Lands End is. The date on their birth certificate may state they are over the age of 28 years, but the Karney theory of chronological regression has shrunk their memory banks to the level of unretentive adolescence

Some academic time lord aged 90 who is the new 80 should write a paper on this

But that is by the by. Far more fascinating and easier to grapple with is Karney's discovery of the sprightliness and fun-seeking attitudes of the notionally aged.

He is saying that a person of 80 .. once prejudicially expected to be toothless, immobile and demented is likely to as fit as someone 5 years below the current pension age ..

He formed this conclusion by observing ith delight how the elderly of Berlin mingled with the young on the Ku'damm's cafes and bars.

I know Berlin. I have seen these old codgerscavorting with strumpets old enough to be their great grand-daughters and grannies linking arms with their toy boys I imagined in my naivety that these old geezers and gals were making up for a lost youth of the war years of being bossed about by Hitler and bombed by the Allies.

But then I returned to Manchester.. and realised that Manchester pensioners too was behaving like "ein Berliner!"

Pat did not have to go off to Germany to see old folk having fun or doing their damndest to have it. Pat wants welcoming facilities for our old and it's to his credit that he does.

But.. if he spent an afternoon in Manchester he would find them heaving up with septuagenarian teddy boys and girls with degrees in heavy boozing and brawling from the days of Franke Laine

Pat Karney should be careful. He is as yet unaware of the menacing growth of grey hooliganism.

My local has just barred a man of 78 yearsfor fighting. I saw him make his way to catch a bus with his free bus pass into central Manchester where his mugshot is not as yet on the gallery of undesirables
Give this old geezer entrance to a Deansgate Winery and watch the glasses fly. And Heaven help the 30 year old bouncer who asks him politely to stub out his cigarette