The Roaring Forties

‘REMEMBER Tony Blair’s Paul Smith suit, the one with the pictures of naked ladies embroidered inside the cuffs?

‘Fuck what I said, it don’t mean shit now’

And remember that time he jammed with a school band on his ‘axe’, sang in front of a gaggle of Chinese students and strapped himself into a rowing machine? Remember Leo?

Great moments, indeed. Times when those of us who like to point and giggle at middle-aged men with sports cars and leather trousers will forever hold dear.

And there are more such moments to come with news in the Times that the mid-life crisis that used to start at 50 now begins at 40-something.

In a survey of 500 men aged between 35 and 64, a quarter of men in their 40s said they felt old and two-thirds said they felt under the same pressure as women to look good and stay youthful.

But whereas Tony and his ilk will join a gym and buy a personalised number plate, this new breed are just as likely to have a body wrap, full facial and a little Botox injected around the mouth.

Professor Cary Cooper, a psychologist, tells the Telegraph why.

‘Once they are at the top of their field,’ he says, ‘they have a reality check and realise that work has overwhelmed their life at the cost of their health and looks.’

Although it’s nothing a new secretary can’t fix…’

Posted: 21st, April 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink