I passed a beauty parlour today offeringbotox, microdermabrasion (say it slowly, watching your lips in the mirror - sounds a bit like 'supercalifragilistic', too), chemical peels, lasers, 'advanced beauty' (no idea what that might be- brand new head and face, no doubt) and dermal fillers.

All these treatments are intended to literally peel away the cruelties of time.You could even put your feet in a tank and let fishnibbleaway your hard skin if you're too stiff to pumice them.

Shakespeare said we 'ripe and ripe' and then we 'rot and rot' in 'As You Like It' but, trouble is we don't like it (rotting and rotting, I mean).

If my memory is still working, I believe Somerset Maugham said there are many advantages in growing old, though he was unable to think of one.I'd say being alive is much better than the alternative.

Other bonuses aregoing to bed and getting up when you like and eating and drinking what takes your fancy.Being retired is another.

Age is a question that has vexed people for thousand of years. (In Athensyou had to be fifty years old before becomingan elderof the city - the equivalentof a CountyCouncillor nowadays).

Yeats, the Irish poet, equated age with 'being full of sleep', so there are negative and positive aspects to the process.

I once had a tutor who, when he got stuck duringa lecture, would walk to the window and murmur softly: 'But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot drawing near'.This was followed by: 'Girls, this lesson is coming to a close, so let's discuss homework', which rather spoilt the effect of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress', but that's as good an argument as any for getting on with the job, I expect.