Active OAPs are one thing... but Sewel’s sex antics are exhausting
 IT’S fast approaching 10pm and you’re fast approaching your 70th birthday – what do you do? A) Retire to bed and read one sentence of your book before . . . zzzzzzzzzzz. B) Pour yourself another Sauvignon and settle down to watch the latest episode of your favourite TV series/boxset. C) Pick up the phone to order a couple of hookers from whose naked bosoms you can, if so inclined, snort a Class A drug? I don’t know about you, but I’m mostly B with the occasional A if it’s been a tough week. And I’m only 53. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t get the perverse antics of 69-year-old Labour peer Lord Sewel who, on Monday, was splashed across the front of this newspaper wearing a bright orange push-up bra and studded leather jacket belonging to one of the prostitutes he paid for sex and from whose breasts he allegedly snorted cocaine. More tea, vicar? These activities and other sex games deemed “too obscene to describe” seem not only silly for a man of a certain age, they’re also undeniably exhausting. I mean, quite frankly, what normal near-septuagenarian could be bothered with all that sexually deviant shenanigans? Particularly when the fragrant Mrs Sewel the third — who with masterly understatement has let it be known that he’s “not expected” back — was in situ at the couple’s palatial marital home in Aberdeen? For surely, one of the joys of growing old with your spouse is that your sources of joy are in perfect sync — the garden in full bloom, the grandchildren visiting (and leaving), a completed crossword, a thought-provoking movie and, yes, the occasional dinner with friends where you both drink too much and mutually suffer the next day. A new survey conducted among the over-60s has revealed that an impressive 68 per cent do not consider themselves “old”, with 43 per cent saying they are no longer content to have a quiet retirement. They now account for five per cent of people getting their first tattoo, 44 per cent of them are active on Facebook, 22 per cent are attending gigs, 35 per cent are backpacking and 13 per cent have been skydiving. Skydiving aside, I couldn’t agree more and fully intend to join them in a sporadically active retirement while also relishing life’s quiet, inactive pleasures. Needless to say, the report didn’t mention paying someone to have sex with you while you snort cocaine from their boobs. That’s stretching the ethos of an “active retirement” a little too far. Lord Sewel has now resigned from the House of Lords and awaits the result of a police search at his London apartment. Perhaps he will cite “sex addiction” (yawn) as an excuse for his tawdry behaviour and check in to rehab for a spot of reflection on how he has humiliated not only himself but his immensely dignified wife and the four adult children they have between them. Or perhaps he’s simply a dirty old man who will never change. |
