Cosmo Landesman on turning 70: 'It's just a number, right? What's the big deal?' By Cosmo Landesman For You Magazine Published: 08:01, 21 September 2024 | Updated: 08:01, 21 September 2024 e-mail View comments How does it feel to turn 70? It feels strange. Just yesterday, it seems, I was 60. And the day before that I was 50.
A fortnight ago, I was 15 and falling in love for the first time. And now I’m 70! That’s proper old. I know this because when I turned 50 and then 60, friends said I looked great for my age and they made jokes about getting me a Zimmer frame for my birthday.
This time, when I said I was 70 there was an awkward silence – as if I had just delivered some bad medical news. ‘When I look in the mirror, I can’t believe what that cruel vandal time has done to me’ And when I look in the mirror in the morning, I can’t believe what that cruel vandal time has done to me: the deep slash-lines of age; the bloated bags under the eyes; the litter of ageing spots and bumpy-lumpy things. Then there’s my wobbly chicken neck, my expanding belly and my drooping buttocks.
Reader, I’ll spare you the details of my melancholic scrotum. People see me as an older bloke, too. On public transport, young men get up to offer me their seat.
(It was only yesterday that I was offering older people my seat!) I should be touched by their kindness and I am, but I can’t help thinking, ‘P*** off, I’m not that bloody old!’ How did I become 70? I was once a young baby b.