Whatever happened to the nineteen forties?

        Well, I’ll tell you where they went. Right into my parents’ house, that’s where. John Wayne, Glenn Ford, Audrey Hepburn, they’re all right here on DVD, video, Betamax and cine film. Not only in the rack either, but on vintage TV stations that screen ancient westerns every afternoon in dreary black and white starring a cast of oldies with about as much acting skills as my dog.

I know, I know, we will all be old one day but what is it with old people who get to a certain age and then go backwards in time.

Last night my Old Man was so insistent that we all sat and watched his favourite film, some John Wayne affair about the wild-west that I was forced to go to the pub. In it we get rolled-down paper scenery, a few token cattle and some bimbo with a phoney Texas accent swanning about in an immaculate ball-gown which miraculously doesn’t show up the dirt.
The thing is, it is probably a great story. But it's just over glamorised for those poor down-trodden gullible general public from that era who were trying desperately to cling on to a dream that, somewhere out there, everything isn’t really shit!

Yes, the old forties Hollywood films were great in their day but things have moved on. 

My mother doesn’t like modern films, as they contain too much violence.

Oh, and cowboys shooting each other and falling off buildings don’t? Well, no that isn’t really violence is it? Because it looks about as real as David Cameron's smile. Less so, in fact.

Let’s watch the 39 Steps, instead?

OK. I find it from the rack to see it is the original version, from 1938! Jeez. They made 3 remakes since then Ma, and I quite like the one with Robert Powel because it is actually filmed on the Scottish moors instead of in a papier-mache railway carriage with pretend scenery going by in the background. Not only that, but in the newer ones they all talk with proper accents instead of sounding like Mr Chumley-Warner with a handful of marbles in his gob!

Is it inherent that when you reach a certain age you can no longer face anything new? When/if I reach seventy will I suddenly start hating anything made after the year 2000? Do you reckon I will revert to lusting after Felicity Kendal and watching reruns of The Good Life on Dave? I sincerely hope not.

Will Halle Berry or Jessica Alba in a swimsuit be the very last TV stars that might give me a stiffy?

And anyone born after 1972 be considered as talentless violent rapists?

They say that we all turn into our parent. It is unavoidable, apparently.

Oh what joy I have in store!