Tips for the newly 50

By Mike Smartt BBC News Online

This was the week in which the UK's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, hit the big five-O, about which there were almost as many column inches written as about "I'm a Celebrity etc etc".

However, amidst all the congratulation and celebration, BBC News Online noticed a lack of real practical advice for Mr Blair - or any other very recently ex-49-year-old man - and decided to offer some pointers:

Go easy!

• Do admit it. Your brain could still be telling you are 27 and a few other parts of your anatomy may still be functioning as they did around that age.

But whereas back then, recovery from an all-night bender usually took until around eleven the following morning, once you're 50 it'll be more than a week before you're eating and sleeping properly again.

• Never own up to a lingering obsession with rock music. Mr Blair confesses privately his favourite sounds are by two late sixties outfits, Free and King Crimson - though, at 16, he was a bit on the young side for the pretentious progressive pioneers whose first album was In the Court of the Crimson King.

The opening cut 21st Century Schizoid Man is, reportedly, the PM's top track because of its outrageously complex guitar solo by the group's founder Robert Fripp (husband of the now famous-again jungle-dweller Toyah Wilcox). As any fool knows, it was the drumming on the track by Michael Giles that was really amazing.

And never use the terms sounds and cut. Mr Blair says he wishes he could appreciate classical music, but he just can't. Worse, any 50-year-old must avoid pretending to like the music his kids do, which means he hasn't developed one iota in 35 years.

Most men of that age have at least progressed to jazz, a taste which, once acquired, is almost entirely male, involves drinking loads of beer and, as a result, ever more regular visits to the urinals.

• Don't wear jeans. About the only mature people left pulling on the lower-body denim in the morning are builders and the middle-aged, middle-classes at weekends. However, most men - or rather their wives - have realised how ridiculously uncool this looks on anyone over 21 and have thrown every pair out years ago.

Has sir considered light cotton slacks?

Some wives do continue to embarrass their aging partners by insisting on obscure outfits for them in outrageous colours - the sort of stuff even David Beckham would give a red card - and this is serious.

When you're 50, and you've not yet put your foot down on issues like what you're seen out in, it's way too late.

• Don't take part in any sport which requires more than a few minutes of concentrated physical exercise.

John Ryan, the owner of Nationwide Conference team Doncaster Rovers, actually played for a few minutes in a proper league game recently at the age of 52, but he just ran around and no-one passed him the ball.

Either the players were all too dim to realise that a first-team place is more likely assured if you let the boss at least have a kick or they were bright enough to twig that the exertion might kill him and they'd be all looking for new clubs next season.

Rugby players remember when, as teenagers, the "under thirties versus the over thirties" annual fixture meant turning out against a team who looked as if they'd parked their bath chairs behind the club house.

In every sport save snooker and golf (neither of which actually qualifies for the description), watching the over fifties trying to keep up is as side-splitting as it is sad. Also...

• Never go to the gym. Don't believe that years of bodily neglect can be reversed after the big five-0 by hours jogging, cycling or rowing on the spot. It can't. Even wrestling with the door to the shower cubicle afterwards is ill-advised.

Mind Gordon's windows

• Never go to a discotheque, either alone (you'll be mortified by an evening of rejection) or accompanied. Discos are just not for you and never were, because you were already too old when they were invented.

The only exceptions are the nightclubs you can't afford and Peter Stringfellow, who, now approaching double your age, is beyond caring. Dance, by all means. But only at gatherings of people of a similar vintage because medical aid will probably be close at hand.

• Tell yourself that the fifties are the best decade there is. The twenties were all insecurity and failure. The thirties were kids and poverty. The forties were greasy-pole climbing and enhancing your pension.

Now you are experienced and well off enough to begin enjoying life for the first time without worrying too much what people think. Your only niggling concern is that in less than ten years time, you'll be 60. But by then, 60 will be the new 50. So that's all right then.