Escape from the country

A birthday seemed as good a reason as the riots for making ourselves scarce this week. Television coverage is the new soap; sanctimony knows no bounds. Penzance and its immediate environs were as far as we got – Newlyn, Mousehole and St Ives. As you would expect, for August, there was no shortage of other people taking a break...primarily the type whose children are more likely to deface cenotaphs than burn down shopping centres.For me, fish is one of the principal local attractions; there’s plenty of it and it doesn’t necessarily cost the earth. Called in at one or two of the usual watering holes; walked miles; paddled in the sea. In an effort to placate Fernley-Whittingstall, and for the fifth (and last) time, I ate pollock. Dreadful stuff; you wouldn’t feed it to a cat. Whilst I usually breeze through these landmark birthdays, this time it hurt. Truth to tell I’m pissed at turning 60. They say 60 is the new 50, but almost overnight I appear to have morphed into a grumpy, white-haired doppelganger of Spencer Tracy, circa Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. I’m not a happy bunny.