Millennials get a bad press, and no wonder. Look at them! Or to be more accurate, look at them through my vinegary gaze.
They are always wafting around in a daze, taking pictures of rainbows in puddles or scrolling through their phones with the intensity of a snake charmer staring down a cobra.
They spend money they should be saving on ridiculous pumpkin-spiced lattes from overpriced coffee shops, or ordering Deliveroo pizzas while worrying the wi-fi signal is going down in their safe space.
Like meerkats, they move around together in self-sufficient little gangs, sharing the same acceptable Leftist opinions, uninterested and unable to connect emotionally with the world outside.
Find: Workmen refurbishing the Manchester’s Ritz club found the wallet, containing 12 pence, a Midland bank bard, which expired in 1987, and a handwritten library pass
No snowflake born in the past two decades of the 20th century seems to know how to dress a wound or put up a shelf or make supper out of an onion, a baked potato and a tofu sausage.
But they do all love Jeremy Corbyn because he is a freedom fighter and a vegetarian who digs Venezuela and wears corduroy ironically, just like them. They can only communicate within and beyond their circle via their smartphones or other hand-held devices, and even then only in cryptic acronyms.
They live by the maxim of YOLO (you only live once) and often suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out), even if they often have problems coping IRL (in real life).
Not all Millennials are like this, of course — don’t all msg me at once, haterz — but a recent survey did more to reinforce the stereotype than to knock it down.
Mystery: Sarah, pictured, used to go to Ritz because it had a ‘spongy’ floor that Sarah and her mates could bounce around on to Eighties hits from Bananarama and drink beer for 70p a pint.
When questioned for a study by an electronics company about aspects of the daily grind that wear them down, the little darlings said their chief First World problems were worrying about avocados not being ripe for their hipster brunches, or that supplies of prosecco might run out.
Just like they did last summer in London (hold me now, I’m still trembling).
They also worried about having to wait in all day for online deliveries, forgetting their online passwords, leaving their phones at home and not getting enough ‘likes’ on Instagram. The researchers, working with a behavioural psychologist from Goldsmiths, University of London, then compared these trivial worries with those faced by people (now aged 50 or over) two decades ago.
We are, as The Who once pointed out, talking ’bout my generation.
Respondents in 1997 weren’t worried about ripening fruits or vegetables, they were concerned with sweating the big stuff — about having a happy relationship, earning enough to pay the bills and buying a home.
Other issues included affording a holiday — you are not going to believe this, kids, but going abroad was not mandatory and no one ever had a gap year.
Another gripe from my generation was having to get up from the sofa to turn over the television channels, which was indeed a right old pain. Still, there was less dissatisfaction among the young back then, in a time which already seems like ancient history.
We weren’t constantly bombarded with envy inducing social media images of the lifestyles of the rich and famous, neither were we choosing our sex-dates on Tinder, or buying things we couldn’t afford simply by clicking a button.
Sarah Dale’s long-lost wallet is the perfect example of how times have changed; it is a relic from another age, as fascinating as the Stone Age purse covered in dog teeth unearthed in Germany five years ago. Almost!
Sarah’s brown wallet, which is a living time capsule of a Midland bank card and handwritten library pass, was discovered behind a radiator during refurbishment work at the Ritz nightclub. She said she doesn’t remember the night in question because she went to the club all the time.
Now working as a top lawyer, Miss Dale was a law student when she mislaid her wallet behind the radiator of a Manchester nightclub, where it has lain untouched for 30 years.
That doesn’t say much for their hygiene standards, but let’s not dwell.
The wallet contained 12p, a £50 Midland Bank cheque card, some photographic ID, a pay slip, a library card and a residents’ association card. This reveals that young Sarah went out into the world, met her neighbours, borrowed and read books, had both a job to get her through university and a savings account.
Note that there were no credit or debit cards. Not only were there fewer things to buy back then, controls such as cheque cards made it harder for young people to get into debt.
Few youngsters had credit cards or flexible friends, nor were they allowed or encouraged to rack up huge bills on the never-never. Now the country is groaning with debt, on both national and personal levels — and that is not a change for the good.
We didn’t have as much back then, and the only fear of avocado we had was a brief period when it was fashionable to have avocado-coloured bathroom suites — which everyone hated.
However, I think life was much easier and more fun than it is today for the snowflakey Millennials who have so much more in terms of choice, but who seem so hidebound by their technology, instead of getting out there and living a life, like we did.
No wonder they are so annoying.
Why I think more of Theresa now
Is it safe to come out now? Can we bear to look? No, Theresa May has not had the best of weeks, but I thought there was something noble in her doggedness in the face of disaster.
Doing her rounds of interviews during the conference, she had a new, hopeful, cheery little note patched onto her voice. Then her keynote, troop-rallying campaign speech was beset by problems and deemed a disaster.
Theresa May has not had the best of weeks, but I thought there was something noble in her doggedness in the face of disaster
Yet I thought she ad-libbed rather well, considering spontaneity is not one of her strong points. It certainly took guts to get through the damn thing, but somehow she struggled on. The Prime Minister looked near to tears when Philip May jumped up to hug her at the end, but this made me think more of her, not less.
She made it to the end, she did her duty and she has a husband who clearly loves her. That is not nothing. And if bad luck really does come in threes — croaky voice, idiot prankster, falling scenery — then it should be plain sailing from now on.
Fingers crossed.
It was television presenter Davina’s turn to shine this week, showing off a large slice of her fruity botty in a frilly swimsuit
Davina gives ageing the bum’s rush
Sometimes I think it would just be quicker and simpler for all of us if Davina McCall, Myleene Klass and Holly Willoughby just got together every morning and did the can-can down the Mall in their knickers. For all three women make a point of regularly oversharing on social media about their gorgeous bodies, their gorgeous lives, their gorgeous holidays and their gorgeous clothes.
It is exhausting — for us, not them. They might argue that it is an important and lucrative part of marketing themselves, of course. However, it can’t hurt that their fans add adoring comments to each post. That’s always a nice ego boost for the diligent narcissist, no matter how famous.
It was television presenter Davina’s turn to shine this week, showing off a large slice of her fruity botty in a frilly swimsuit. ‘First foray into thong bikini . . . at 50,’ she wrote. ‘This might look like I’m showing off . . . I am.’
Well, who could blame her? After giving up sugar in 2015 — and illegal drugs a few decades earlier — Davina has become super-fit, a woman who trains as hard as an athlete and is in terrific shape. She was celebrating her 50th birthday by hiking in France with her girlfriends, where they went mad and had some sugar-free cake.
Many happy returns, Davina! Although I suspect the idea of marking a 50th with no champagne, no sugar, no chocolate, no husband and no children on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere isn’t going to catch on any time soon.
No substitute for Kim
Oh dear. Handbags on the Sex And The City front, where the stars have fallen out over making a third Hollywood film. Kim Cattrall, who played sex-mad Samantha, has pulled out at the last minute — calling her co-stars ‘toxic’.
Sarah Jessica Parker finds this regrettable, but believe me it wasn’t as regrettable as Sex And The City 2, which was an insult to all of us. I can see why Kim is not keen.
Sarah Jessica Parker (left) and Kim Cattrall (shown right) star in Sex And The City 2
At 61, she is a decade older than her co-stars. Even super-cougars like Samantha have a shelf life, and it would be awful to see her prowling around Manhattan throwing herself at geriatric younger men.
Diehard fans want the film to go ahead with or without her. But Samantha is irreplaceable, the key character. It’s not like Miss Ellie in Dallas, who was summarily replaced with another actress when Barbara Bel Geddes retired. That would never work for SATC, would it? Unless Ab Fab’s Patsy Stone was free . . .
A gran with clout
Thank you as always for all your emails and letters. Last week, I wrote about the death of Liz Dawn, who played Vera Duckworth in Coronation Street.
My appreciation of gritty, Northern women met with great appreciation — from gritty Northern women.
My favourite email was from 72-year-old Judith K, from Bury, who was babysitting her small grandson while her daughter was on holiday in Marrakech. Pausing only to note that she only ever went to Blackpool on hols, Judith wrote: ‘Yes, I am one of those who accept no nonsense. In the playground this morning my grandson was playing up and I shouted at him: “I’ll clout your ears if you don’t pack it in.” The yuppie Cheshire mums were horrified, but I just thought, get a life.’
And consider themselves well and truly clouted.
Archaeologists in Turkey think they have discovered the final resting place of Saint Nicholas. Maybe so, but can we just get one thing straight? Santa Claus is not, repeat, not dead. OK?