The Herald (Glasgow), 31 December 2001, by David Belcher
Putting the foot down about middle age
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Hide those motorbikes, sexy young ladies, and body-hugging 
football shirts. The 40-year-old man has a new incarnation - 
a self-centred childish chap, says David Belcher

OVER the past few years we've grown used to fresh terms 
which identify the ever -evolving nature of an unchanging 
socio-cultural phenomenon - the eternal puerility of the 
grown-up male. Aye, when dad enters his second childhood, 
sons and daughters cringe with embarrassment.

Because it seems there's no escaping the old boy network, a 
men-only organisation which assures old boys that, no matter 
how old they may truly be, they needn't stop enjoying 
adolescent bad behaviour.

Peter Pan, eat your heart out - and then watch your real-
life equivalent vainly trying to arrest time by buying 
himself a motorbike, a mountain bike, or swathing his beer-
bellied form in a replica football shirt fashioned in far-
from-flattering acrylic fibres. But back to the full tribal 
list of self-deluding masculine mischief-makers. First up 
was the non-quiche-eating real man. Scorning the feminist 
myth of gender equality, the real man proudly proclaimed 
himself a sloth in the kitchen but a red-blooded jackal at 
the dining table - and, of course, a tiger where it really 
mattered, between the sheets. Black silk ones, naturally.

Just as naturally, real man felt the daily supervision of 
any resultant offspring was exclusively woman's work.

The real man was initially superseded - only briefly, mind - 
by the caring, sharing new man, before it was back to 
business as usual with the lager -swilling new lad. Now, 
following hard on the perennially youthful heels of the 
self-centred kidult, there's a fresh group of determinedly 
childish chaps who like nothing better than playing with 
their expensive big boys' toys.

A forthcoming TV comedy drama focuses on documenting the 
antidote to the woeful burdens of male middle age: the jolly 
years of male middle youth! Manchild stars Nigel Havers, Ray
Burdis, Don Warrington, and Anthony Head as a quartet of 
schoolboy chums who have now entered the delusional zone of 
middle youth.

Middle youth has replaced what, throughout civilisation's 
long-ago Dark Ages - the ones which persisted until about 
1969 - used to be called middle age. Today, middle age is 
old hat - and, in old-hat terms, we're talking staid trilby, 
not groovy baseball cap.

In middle youth it's not about a bloke's life beginning at 
40 so much as wilfully going off the rails at 40. Indeed, 
the only mid-life crisis for most of Manchild's heroes is 
where their next hot young popsy is coming from.

According to Manchild's pre-publicity, three out of its four 
main characters have "shrugged off their responsibilities of 
marriage and fatherhood, having paid the alimony, education 
fees, and the emotional price. They are now free to enjoy 
their new-found adolescence, and feel the thrill and the 
throb of being men-about-town again, but this time with tons 
of cash and style.

"Sports cars, shiny 140mph motor bikes, riverside 
apartments, and young girlfriends so sexy and willing. 
Surely knocking on the door of 50 has never been so much fun 
. . ."

In contrast to this trio of born-again hedonists, there's 
one sober and dutiful middle-aged duffer in Manchild who has 
remained married, and who looks on enviously at the high-old 
young man's times being enjoyed by his three divorced chums. 
You need only glance at the photo of Manchild's cast to know 
who's who.

Yup. Mr Sensible is played by the balding, put-upon-looking 
and wearily hangdog Ray Burdis.

Manchild's central proponent of the middle-youth philosophy 
of excess is the aforementioned Nigel Havers, who glides 
through the series aboard every fortysomething playboy 
poltroon's two-wheeled dream-machine - not a mountain bike, 
but a BMW R1100 motorbike.

Havers plays a wealthy and debonair ladies' man. A sugar 
daddy, he likes the fillies. Totty. Bits of stuff. Chaps in 
their middle youth will often lose their bearings when 
waylaid by sloe-eyed young flippertigibbets who get worked 
up over pop ephemera - the now split Steps - rather than a 
chap's favourite novel, The 39 Steps.

Non-fictional adultery is a naughty boy's game with grown-up 
consequences that are sad and painful.

For it goes without saying that, in real life, the upheaval 
caused by marital infidelity is something that's never 
remotely fun for any of the parties involved. In Manchild, 
however, there's only comic comeuppance for Terry, the 
character played by Havers. Terry enjoys having a trophy 
girlfriend who is half his age, but is then somewhat 
dismayed when she goes after his 23-year-old son.

Thankfully, most real-life blokes choose to sate the desires 
of their middle youth in ways which lead merely to muscular 
distress rather than familial and moral angst.

A recent survey showed that most sober Brits choose to quell 
any middle-youth disquiet by buying a pet rather than 
illicitly snogging an extra -marital poppet.

In the same way, the fortysomething male who chooses to 
court death on two wheels is a cliched stereotype - but he 
nevertheless does exist.

"When I got to 40 I bought myself a brand-new scooter," says 
the pseudonymous Mr Suzuki Bandit, a middle youth of 45 and 
father of two. "It's what I'd always promised myself as a 16 
year old, but could never afford.

"For the same reason, at 42 I bought myself a yacht - only a 
small one, mind. The problem with that was I couldn't tell 
my wife. I had to get rid of it eventually because I was 
afraid to use it too much in case my wife thought I was 
slipping away to have an affair. For my 44th birthday I 
bought a proper motorbike - a 1200cc effort. Now my wife's 
only worry is that I keep paying my life insurance 
premiums."

Most often of all, that staple indulgence of middle youth, 
the expensive mountain bike, is swiftly banished to the 
garage when it proves too physically ruinous to pedal 
anywhere other than downhill.

Likewise, the adoption of a Manchester United shirt in 
hopeful emulation of David Beckham inevitably leads to 
genuine participation in five-a-side football matches. And 
hence to broken ankles, legs, and wrists, plus torn cruciate 
ligaments. There is also danger and dismay in electrically-
operated hobbyists' tools, chainsaws, DIY drills, and 
labour-saving garden implements. There is a greater feeling 
of achievement - and safety - in watching home improvement 
and garden shows on the telly. Just avoid the ones with 
saucy Carol Smillie and swinging Charlie Dimmock in them. 
Raging testosterone - it is the greatest enemy of a man's 
happy middle youth.

Chiropractors have similarly welcomed the number of men in 
their middle youth buying themselves low-slung sports cars. 
The family hatchback might not look very sexy - but then 
neither does the old fool who's dislocated five vertebrae 
failing to limbo out of his Alfa Romeo Spider.

There's a medical warning, too, for any man who, inspired 
either by Quadrophenia or Roman Holiday, makes a bid to 
regain his youthful joie de vivre with the purchase of a 
stylish Piaggio motor scooter. Be aware that using a scooter 
for your daily commute in any month other than July will 
result, post-dismount, in your being frozen into an ungainly 
posture: the lavatorial squat.

More deadly accident statistics have accompanied the recent 
increase in the number of Born Again Motor Bikers, or 
Bambis. Hospitals and police forces all over Britain have 
been aghast at the rise in the number of road traffic 
fatalities involving middle-aged men seeking to relive their 
motorbiking youths on super-powerful bikes.

It's far safer to play at being a boy racer indoors. Invest 
in a loft conversion and the mammoth Scalextric set that was 
beyond your pocket money 30 years ago.

Better still, buy a model railway and recreate the entire 
workings of the London Midland and Scottish line. If you 
operate it to the LMS timetable for 1954, there's a 
congratulatory bonus in that you'll still be beating what 
Virgin Rail offers real-life travellers today.

In short, don't go a-footerin' with seductive 
twentysomething Ms Wrong from accounts. Don't go playing 
footy, either. Beware the wheels coming off -especially when 
there are are only two of them to start with.

Ask any woman. Ask any child. There's nothing so pitiful as 
the man who opts to go fully manchildish.

Manchild begins its run on Wednesday, January 9, on BBC2 at 
9.30pm.

Photo caption: ALL REVVED UP: Nigel Havers as Terry the 40-
year-old childish chap with a two-wheeled dream machine in 
the new series Manchild. Picture: Richard Kendall



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