mostly david ephgrave

Today’s my thirty-seventh birthday and I don't want to worry anyone, but to stay on track, I need to release my equivalent to Double Fantasy in three years' time. This is another way of saying, “If I want to achieve as much as John Lennon did in his lifetime within the same time-frame, I need to get it all in before I turn forty in 2021; I’m nothing if not ambitious. I didn’t sleep at all last night, which was nothing to do with my impending birthday, though as the hours crept by, I inevitably found myself pondering today’s milestone and what it means to me. It’s a strange one to reckon with as, while I’m under no illusion I’m old, the fact I’m edging dangerously close to the next biggie - my fortieth - is a concerning. The past decade has flown by in the blink of a crow’s-footed eye, so who’s to say the next ten years won’t too? Is my brain set to the wrong shutter-speed or did I black out for a while somewhere down the line? This morning I had an answerphone message f...

Yesterday, I genuinely had to use an online calculator to work out my age. Don’t misconstrue this too much; I knew the ballpark figure, I just couldn’t remember the exact number, and rather than do the simple mathematics to work it out, like so many teenagers around me, I turned to the internet; why carry information in my head that’s only a Google search away? It’s still a little worrying; thank God I know Prime Minister’s name (much to my chagrin) and the current year, or I’d be making myself a doctor’s appointment. I think it’s safe to say this was a temporary mental blank and not something ominous. It’s not as if it was a shock to learn I’m in my late thirties, other than the sense that the time has gone so fast. Imagine how distressing it would have be for Cliff Richard; there aren't enough digits in our numerical system to document him. 

I sometimes feel like a fictional adult. Actually, you'd better switch “sometimes” with “always”. It’s particularly evident when I pass someone on the street. It’s at times like this when I feel l'm just portraying the role of a normal, well-adjusted human being with a job and a family: the sort of person who has a mortgage (I've got one) and a pension (I'm out of my depth there) and who actively contributes to society, and not someone who owns two pairs of jeans and barely a pair of shoes and has no idea what PPI means. The only thing that alleviates my worry slightly is the vague glimmer of hope that I’m not the only one; there must at least be a few people who feel the same as me. Surely? Maybe? Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that a man approaching forty has been deemed an adult in every culture since the dawn of time. So why can’t I get my head around it? I think it’s universal to not feel age deep down. People often say they don’t feel...

A moment ago, while making a pot of coffee, I caught sight of a mug that I received as a present for my eighteenth birthday lurking at the back of the kitchen cupboard and came to the worrying realisation that this happened sixteen years ago. My kitchen is a hotbed for such reminders. My noticeboard has an advert pinned to it that my parents placed in the local paper to mark my 21 st birthday, back in 2002. Next to this, a Beatles-themed calendar celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of 'Help!', on which a photo of the band smiles back, none of whom were twenty-five when the album was released. On the adjacent wall, there’s a framed poster for the show in which I made my professional début nearly fourteen years ago. I may as well carry a device that counts down the time to my advancing middle age, reminding me of how close it is at thirty-minute intervals. I know I’m being melodramatic; I’m not old yet. Plenty of people would...

Jim Bowen was only forty-four when he started presenting Bullseye. Bowen, Series One. Yes, you heard me right: forty-four. That’s just ten years older than me. While I’m a fan of Bowen and see him as an institution, that doesn’t mean I’d want to look like him a decade from now. If I do, my degradation rate will be similar to Walter Donovan's after drinking from the wrong grail at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. (Classic reference.) Jim, Circa 1981 To hammer the point home, I’ve compiled a list of famous people who are the same age now as Jim Bowen was then . It’s right at the time of going to press and is pretty comprehensive. Strap in… David Tennant, Matt Damon, Ewan McGregor, Gary Barlow, Susanna Reid, Lisa Snowdon, Tamzin Outhwaite, David Walliams, Pete Sampras, Ethan Hawke, Jamie Theakston, Tess Daly, David Coulthard, Melinda Messenger, Mary J Bl...

Friday 8th August 1969. Just before noonish. Four world-famous faces convene outside EMI Studios in St. John’s Wood. Their bodies convene at the same location; it would have looked weird if they hadn't.  A stepladder is quickly set up in the centre of the main road, just a few yards from a zebra crossing. The four musicians wander down to it, the clean-shaven one kicks off his sandals and they then proceed to walk over the crossing a handful of times - the musicians, not the sandals - whilst a photographer up the ladder captures the moment. I’m referring to the cover shoot for The Beatles’ Abbey Road. Get it? Good. At that point the Fab Four were already at the tail-end of their collective career, only a few brief months from calling it a day.  They’d conquered the world (musically speaking), and in just seven years had transmuted from loveable moptops to less-loveable, even-moppier moptops – and, get this: none of them had yet r...