Are You Smarter Than An 18 Year Old?

What have I been doing since 1992? Have I done anything? I'm not sure. I went to America once but does that count as actually doing anything?

I've been thinking about this since Saturday night. During the interval at a gig, a completely thoughtless bastard came up to me and said how much she was enjoying the show. Dick. She then went on to say that she loved Pointless Anger, Righteous Ire in Edinburgh. Dick. I turned to the unfeeling, inconsiderate idiot and said "Thanks. Why would someone as young as you want to go to watch a pair of old men grumping around?" She replied with "I know. I was 17 in Edinburgh. I'm 18 now". There are few things that hit you harder than the realisation that punched me right in the face.

I am talking to someone who is younger than The Drowners.

For fuck's sake. How can anyone be younger than The Drowners? How can you stand up without help, form sentences and make potty all by yourself if you're younger than The Drowners? Fuck it, she's younger than Your Arsenal and It's A Shame About Ray. SHE'S YOUNGER THAN RESERVOIR DOGS. It's fucking disgusting.

I quickly wrapped up the chat because my head hurt with all this thinking. I seem to be thinking about time a lot recently. In August I overheard someone in a cafe say "Don't worry about it. It's all in the past" and I came up with the world's most pointless and boring theory. It really IS all in the past. Everything. Absolutely everything is in the past. EVEN THE FUTURE! Because we don't know what will happen in the future, or if the future will even ever come, it is all in the past. We only assume tomorrow is Thursday because of all the other Thursdays in the past. In a way, we're travelling backwards in time. And, because everything we can fathom comes from things we all already know IT'S ALL IN THE PAST. My friend, Barney, said "What you're about to say next isn't in the past". "It is", I replied. And it was. IT'S ALL IN THE PAST.

This tedious thought and my insistence on going on about it upset at least two people during the Edinburgh Festival. I can see why.

Then I met this girl who was born in 1992. A grown adult born in 1992. A grown adult who completely missed The Stone Roses. And, instead of doing the usual I'm-smarter-than-a-young-person thing that we oldies often do I realised that she has to be smarter and more knowledgeable than me. She has to. The years 1968-1992 are pretty well documented. Big stuff happened. Man landed on the moon, The Beatles split up, the three-day week, Harold Wilson, Star Wars, Thatcher, Reagan, the Falklands War, the miner's strike, Haysi Fantayzee flick the v's on Top Of The Pops, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela's release, The Drowners. The important things in that list are all well known. Everything else that happened to me during that time was just me pissing about. What isn't that well documented, or at least it isn't ever pointed out to me, are things that have happened in the last few years. Things that the girl from 1992 will know very well, because she is young, as well as everything that has happened since I was born. I only just found out who Justin Beiber is and up until a few months ago I was blissfully unaware of the £2 coin, something that went into circulation when she was 4. That's right, I'm 42 and starting to forget things already. There was a time when I could have told you the drummer or bass player from every awful heavy metal band in 1980's Britain but the other day one of them told me to fuck off and I couldn't quite place him (it's a long story). But this CHILD, this thoughtless uncaring bastard of a child, who timed her existence on Earth brilliantly to avoid Sylverster McCoy's era, with her compliments and warmth, will know more about the world than I do.

I'm all in the past.

BUT....the future is Los Quattros Cvnts! Come and see the return of Los Quattros Cvnts tonight at The Phoenix, Cavendish Square at 8pm. Our excellent guests are Colin Hoult and Caroline Mabey. Get there early, seats go very quickly.



www.phoenixcavendishsquare.co.uk
www.michaellegge.info