I met a proper 1980s pop star the other day [1].
And when I say proper I mean proper. Top 10 proper. Smash Hits cover star proper. So, not the guy from Jimmy The Hoover [2].
What struck me was how good he looked. He has aged well. Sickeningly well. Git.
The poncey 1980s hair has gone (although he still has hair) and he looks lean, rugged and handsome. Frankly, I would like to look like he does when I grow up. Unfortunately, he is only about eight months older than me so the chances look slim [3].
Oh, I could possibly lose the weight. Possibly. But I am doubtful I can add a few inches to my height and change my facial features to be more pleasing on the eye.
I am not a vain man particularly (just look at that picture at the bottom of the page for proof), but I am vain enough to wish I had something to be vain about.
Instead, I have spent most of my five decades on this planet thinking I will wake up one day and somehow be more handsome. As yet, it has not happened. When I was younger the problem was acne. These days it is my general jowly middle-to-late-agedness.
I had hoped I would have turned into Cary Grant by now, a kind of elegant silver fox. Instead, I have grown up to be a shabby koala. But without the cuddliness.
The terrible thing is that when it comes to looks, I think I peaked when I was six years old. There is a picture of me from then (somewhere around 1969 or 1970; in other words, not yesterday) where I look adorable, even if I say so myself. Blond, blue-eyed, cute. Macaulay Culkin had nothing on me.
What has happened to me? Adolescence, laziness, bad haircuts and bad genes, I guess.
When we first met J used to say I had beautiful eyes. Now they are just bloodshot.
I think my best bet these days is to embrace my appearance. To actively collaborate in its ruination.
Old age, I have always thought, should look like the poet WH Auden, whose features were so gloriously lined and wrinkled they could have doubled as a 3D map of the Himalayas. "My face," he once said, "looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain."
But those lines gave Auden's countenance character. His was a compelling face. It is what gives me hope; the drama of old men's faces. Think of Tom Waits, say, or John Hurt.
Maybe when I am properly old I will have a lived-in look, one with a decaying grandeur to it. Maybe.
I suspect, though, that would require some grandeur to ruin in the first place.
FOOTNOTES
[1] I am not going to name him here. He will probably turn up in these pages before too long anyway.
[2] A little reference for anyone who read last week's column. Is intertextuality the right word?
[3] Unlike me.
Twitter: @teddyjamieson
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