NO flowers, no champagne. You rotten lot. In fairness, I had ticked the box for no publicity so you were not to know I recently became the proud recipient of a long-service award.

Yes, it was 200 years ago last week that I first joined The Herald. Victoria was on the throne, the Boer War was raging … No, hang on, it was 20 years. I remember it well, entering the newsroom with a song in my heart, a nose for a good story, and a bad case of ringworm.

The long-service ceremony was lovely. I had my photie taken with the boss and my line manager (the latter wearing a curiously strained smile), and handed a rather nice gift voucher. You don’t get that with a damehood, so stick that in your pipe, “Dame” Judi.

A study by the Office for National Statistics shows that getting just one long-service award will soon become a thing of the past. There are now a record ten million workers over 50 in the UK. The raising of the retirement age coupled with increased life expectancy and low interest rates means even more of us will have to work beyond 70 just to maintain current standards of living. As one newspaper put it cheerily: “MILLIONS FORCED TO WORK TILL THEY DROP.”

The advantages for government (facing an ever soaring pensions bill) and employers (older workers tend to be more loyal) are clear. No wonder the Employment Minister, Alok Sharma, was out cheerleading after the ONS numbers were published. “Staying in work for longer is better for our physical and mental wellbeing,” he said. Wonder what his pension is going to be when he retires.

The prospect of carrying on and on will delight some and dismay others.

For every Mel Brooks, 91 years young, who says never retire if you love what you do, there will be those who cannot wait for the day they bid cheerio to the daily grind. Attitudes vary according to all sorts of factors, including the sort of work involved. Toiling in an office at 70 is doable, turning out for a shift on a building site is not.

But look at it this way. With the workforce turning greyer, power will start to reside with the oldsters. No longer will we be elbowed aside by impatient youngsters, an increasing number of whom, having defaulted on their student debt repayments, will have gone off grid and left the workforce. 

The long-service brigade will dominate workplaces the way they have the electoral system. Offices will have to change accordingly. But how? Easy. Here, for any HR bods reading, is a list of our demands.

First, the HR department will change its name back to personnel. No one has ever known, or cared, why it was changed in the first place.
Second, canteens will have to serve food older teeth and tummies can cope with. So no more crunchy baguettes. Oh, and we want fish and chips on Fridays.

Third, every day will be a dress-down Friday. By the time a body reaches a certain age an elasticated waist is less a clothing choice than a human right. And if George from accounts wants to loosen the top button of his trousers after lunch there is no need for HR, sorry, personnel, to get involved.

Fourth, every so-called young person in the company will be made to complete a training course on our cultural pasts so they can join in any “Do you remember …” conversations. Curriculum to include the Clangers, Morecambe and Wise, Mud/The Sweet/New Seekers/Brotherhood of Man, the three day week and Buckaroo.

Fifth, every desk should have its own mini-kettle on a tray, with biscuits and fresh milk, no fiddly cartons. Think of how the spirits lift when you walk into a hotel room and see such a set up. Now all your staff can have that thrill every day.

Sixth, management to supply a therapy pet for every group of five workers. Any disputes involving dogs versus cats, cats versus budgies, to be settled by duels between human colleagues. 

Seventh, older workers would never dream of harming their health through smoking but they do need a break now and then. To accommodate this, please remove all smoking shelters and replace them with moan hot spots. 

Eighth, just because your workforce likes its home comforts does not mean they would shun a team bonding weekend away. Inappropriate relations will not be frowned upon on such occasions because no-one will remember a thing come Wednesday.

Ninth, all office chairs to be replaced by recliners. 

Tenth, anyone supplying 10 brilliant ideas on how to make the workplace more oldie-friendly to be automatically given a damehood. And gift vouchers. 

The Herald:

OH, the banter of those naughty folk at Irn Bru.

In case you missed it, we are all supposed to be scandalised by the latest ad from the soft drinks firm. Irn Bru ads have acquired something of a reputation over the years. In the Christmas one, a youngster is taken for a fly around Glasgow with The Snowman, only to be dropped from a great height.

The latest ad features a father asking his daughter’s boyfriend when he is going to pop the marriage question. “I don’t like him,” says the lad to his girlfriend. “Can we go?” She laughs awkwardly and says they can’t. “Don’t be a can’t,” he replies. “You need a can.”

The company has apologised if viewers thought the lad was dropping a C-bomb. “It’s never our intention to offend, so we’re sorry if our advert hit the wrong note with a few people.” Aye, right.

If you really want to shock us next time, Irn Bru, why not try making an ad with just a shot of the can and the tagline: “Here’s a fizzy drink. It’s fine. Buy it.” The rest of the money you would have given to a fancy ad firm can then go to charity.

The Herald:

IT takes a lot to make the eyebrows of fashion folk shoot upwards, what with all that Botox (meow!), but the Queen achieved it by turning up at a London Fashion Week show to present a new British design award in her name.

Her attendance was a closely guarded secret. So secret, said the Mail’s gossip columnist, that Vogue’s new British editor, Edward Enninful, was in tears when he found out. I’m sure the fashion mob would never be that shallow.

The Queen lives the fashion dream in that she found what works for her and has stuck with it ever since. One of her evergreen accessories is a Launer handbag, as also toted by Margaret Thatcher, in which the monarch is said to keep a fiver in case she is in church and the donation plate comes round.

So the Queen does carry cash. As does Victoria Cleland, the Bank of England’s chief cashier, who said this week she did not use contactless payment after hearing stories of friends having money taken off when they walk past a machine. There you go: we weren’t being paranoid after all.