Robert McNeil: Even yoga cannot save me from time's winged chariot

That is a good point, well made. But consider this: as you get older, you learn not to believe anything, particularly as relates to age. Some months ago, this column revealed that we're all going to die. Despite rioting in several rural areas, the intelligence is now broadly accepted. It gives rise to a question: when are we going to die?

The query is unanswerable, though we're unreliably told in public prints prone to shrieking that genetic jiggery-pokery will soon tell us our sell-by dates. I've eaten pies many days beyond their lifespan, so I cock a snook at that.

I reload another snook and cock it at yesterdays's shock news averring that 60 is the new middle age. At the same time, we're told male life expectancy is 79. You do the arithmetic.

When you factor in parts of Glasgow, the picture becomes even more absurd. You'd be middle-aged 10 years after you were dead. Something to look forward to - from the grave.

I stand accused, by myself, of taking things too literally. And when I say literally I mean numerically. There's no reason, other than logic, why middle age should be the middle of your life. It depends more on how you define old age, which seems to be just the rubbish bit near the very end.

Today, in our fifties (or adolescence as it's now called), we're expected to run about yither and hon, to still be attractive to the opposite sex, and to remain intellectually agile.

Well, none out of three isn't bad. I'm as fit as a fiddle, which is to say I'm as flexible as wood and highly strung. I'd be attractive to the opposite sex if it weren't for my invisibility. And I'm as intellectually agile as an example I can't think of right now.

People say: "You're self-deprecating."

And I say: "No, I'm not."

And they say: "Look, you're doing it again."

Another friend highlights elderly, failing people in our ken - ken? - and says: "We're next." And I think: "I'm not. I do yoga." But secretly, when lying awake in the middle of the day, I think: "Even yoga cannot save me."

Already, my head won't go where it's meant to, and my hunched back requires surgery rather than asanas.

The gerontologist Aubrey de Grey believes we'll be immortal before Hibs win the Scottish Cup. Talk about hedging your bets. But that's what they do in the study of geronts. I could see these visionaries far enough. They come and go. "Yes, he believed passionately in immortality during his lifetime. Of course, he's dead now."

That sums up the futility of it all. What do we want? More futility. When do we want it? In the future.

One thing that's futile for the middle aged, if that's now 60, is applying for work. Ageism in recruitment isn't rife. It's universal. It's just impossible to prove.

It's an ongoing scandal, along with the practice of advertising jobs already spoken for. If that's a legal requirement then it needs to be stopped. It's wasting the time of the unemployed, particularly since it takes three days to fill out the average nutter-devised application form these days.

Question 6: "Give evidence-based examples of how you used a hairbrush to improve efficiency in your workplace. All examples must be within the boundaries of the law and decency. No combs. No hairdressers. Hint for applicants: just make something up."

If work is your life then, for many people in what we're now told is middle age, your life is over. Fortunately, there's more to life than work (editor's voice: "Steady now.")

And, while I cannot think of anything at the time of going to press, I'm sure you can furnish examples. "Hobbies!" shouts a drunk at the back.

"As long as you've got your health," pronounces a wizened sage at the front. Not very helpful. I've always found knees over-rated, but they're usually the first to go.

Then there's your hip. Then your wotsname. Memory. But thankfully, for some of us, that's a long way in the future. Until then, let's kick away time's crutches and make old age a thing of the past.