Odes for Oldies

This collection of comical verses on all things oldie, from going gray to growing old disgracefully, is the perfect pick-me-up for those who have been there, done that, and want to do it all over again

I can't eat nuts or gobstoppers,
I've got no molars left in my head.
All I can get my teeth into now
Is the glass at the side of the bed.

They're known as the "elephant years"—when a person gets to certain age, they turn gray and their ears get bigger. The only difference between a senior citizen and an elephant is that an elephant never forgets and a senior never remembers anything. But, as one poem in this book asks, "How old is old?" Some people are still bungee-jumping in their nineties. Well, some are bungee-jumping and others are tripping down the stairs. Covering all ends of the old age spectrum, this hilarious collection of odes to advanced age includes antidotes on everything from public toilets to the shock of seeing teenyboppers, and from dealing with new technology to being a senior sex symbol.

Clive Whichelow has written for Dead Ringers, Smack the Pony, and Spitting Image as well as for the Daily Mirror, the Express, and the Mail on Sunday. He is a coauthor of the So You’re . . . series and the author of It’s Not Rocket Science, How to Surive Marriage, and How to Survive Parenthood, among others.