Yesterday my dad hit me with some shocking news. I guess I have never really thought of my parents as old people. They are very active, don’t have plaid slippers, don’t stoop, own computers that they know how to use and to the best of my knowledge don’t buy the superb value cavalry twill trousers (Two for One whilst our child tailors can still operate machinery) advertised in Saga Magazine.

As I stood with the phone pressed to my head he just hit me with the news. No gentle pre-amble, no kind and softening preparatory words to ease me into it, just the verbal equivalent of  pulling off a plaster very fast. Be a man, son.

“We take delivery of our new Honda Jazz tomorrow…” Well bugger me sideways. I wasn’t expecting that. He’s on his way to new knee number two, smoked very heavily in his 20’s and 30’s when it was  manly and healthy, so osteoarthritis, cancer or even syphilis would  have been less of a shock.

I howled with a dismay only to be met with a barrage of reliability, TCO and other salient stats. These that had obviously been pre-prepared and committed to a memory that is a long way from failure.

“But it’s an OAP’s car” I protested weakly, again.  To which he replied, “Did you know that  the average age of a Honda Jazz driver is 62?” Then the coup de grace, “I’m 75 so am just getting down with the youth.”