How to feel young again

The older I become, the easier I find it to sink into that old-gittish state of believing everything has got worse with the passage of time.

In my childhood there was the hippie movement, when young people felt that peace and love and expanding your mind might be a nice idea, helped along by the occasional mild, non-psychosis-inducing joint. Nowadays, the drug of choice is cheap booze, with rampaging chavs turning town centres into a Hogarthian nightmare of vomiting and violence fuelled by alcopops and super-strength lagers.

Then there are South West Trains, which drive me to the brink of apoplexy almost every day of the week. They offer a slower and less reliable commuter service to London than was available 40 years ago, along with appallingly loquacious guards who seem to be running their own private radio station and impertinent pre-recorded announcements asking passengers, sorry customers, not to give money to any beggars who might be aboard.