TO paraphrase the words of the great Feargal Sharkey: “True love these days is hard to find”.
At my ripe age, I’m a walking, talking, despairing testament to that.
Apparently ITV is coming to the rescue with its new dating show for the over-somethings, My Mum, Your Dad, which kicks off on Monday.
Of course, the programme, hosted by Davina McCall, is not like Love Island at all.
It’s supposedly a warm and gentle show about singletons in the autumn of their lives who want a second shot at love.
Except when you get to our age, it’s more likely to be a fifth or sixth shot.
The show follows that much- neglected group of people, of which I am one: Gen X.
It will be great to see us golden oldies doing something other than going on cruises or bringing objects to TV’s Antiques Roadshow.
But I have a major issue with the premise. It’s centred around the idea that the grown-up children of said singletons pick the dates for their parents, because they supposedly “know us best”.
On the face of it, this might make sense as our kids doubtless know us best.
What nonsense! It suggests that even in our late 40s and 50s, we need our kids to be involved in decisions about our personal lives.
It sends a signal to the rest of the world that, at a time when we finally get to enjoy and pursue our independence away from family life, it’s still the children who have a say about what we do and who we do it with.
As you probably know, I have some skin in the game.
I’ve spent the past five years single and have been trying to carve out a new life for myself away from my kids who, one by one, have flown the nest.
They might not like the idea of me dating or some of the choices I make, but that’s just tough luck. I’ve dedicated the past 30 years to them — now it’s my time
The very idea that one or all of them should decide who I date sends a shiver down my spine.
They would probably choose some Dull Derek (apologies to the Dereks out there) who is in search of companionship and wants to be tucked up in bed with a lullaby and a mug of Horlicks by 8.30pm.
I don’t mind a little bit of that — but I also want to be swinging from the chandeliers.
I want someone who sets my world alight and is prepared to go skinny-dipping with me at stupid o’clock.
I rage against the ongoing narrative that once we’re in mid-life, all we want is a quiet life. We don’t.
I don’t want fights and drama but I’m still very much alive and kicking. I want heart-stopping, not heart-warming.
And another thing, Davina would have you believe this was her idea.
But a dating show for the over-50s was first mooted by me years ago — in this very newspaper.
My proposal was not to have a complete copy of the predictable, formulaic Love Island with swimwear, high heels and enough false eyelashes and nails to put Miss World to shame.
But something along similar lines because, quite frankly, we need to normalise older bodies and faces that have interesting stories to tell.
And why shouldn’t we have some glitz and glamour? Some of us are in the prime of our lives and have electricity running through our veins.
But while I’m sure the show will be a huge success, in my opinion it’s a wasted opportunity — it sounds and feels patronising and condescending. It’s not the show I’d have made.
ALL top sportsmen have their foibles. But I think my fellow Viking, Man City striker Erling Haaland, takes the biscuit.
Well, he would IF he ate biscuits, but I suspect he doesn’t.
He maintains a diet of 6,000 calories a day – much of which is made up of huge chunks of heart and liver from his local butcher’s, washed down with water from some convoluted filtration system.
But it’s his bedtime routine that has me gripped. Three hours before he goes to sleep, he wears “blue-light-blocking glasses” and as he gets into bed he tapes his mouth shut.
I wonder how Haaland’s routine works out if his girlfriend kips over.
It doesn’t exactly have romance written all over it.
But, then again, I reckon when he hits 60-plus it could be every woman’s dream.
BACK in the day, women were “fat shamed” – and with my so-called “child-bearing hips and pear-shaped” bum, I had my fair share.
Nowadays, we’ve become hell-bent on “skinny-shaming” women – and it’s no better.
The husband of 2002 Big Brother star Kate Lawler recently hit back at trolls who commented on her small frame. Good on him.
The need to give running commentaries about people’s “skinniness” is not only unhelpful but deeply damaging.
From time to time, I get comments on social media about my size. I’m not big enough for some people.
People are often disparaging about skinny people because they feel threatened by them.
Larger people are somehow more palatable.
Kate looks pretty level-headed, so I sincerely hope she doesn’t take any of it to heart.
The nasty comments say far more about the keyboard warriors than her.
SINGER Joe Jonas has filed for divorce from Game Of Thrones star Sophie Turner.
Of course, none of us can profess to know the exact reasons for the couple’s split.
But the facts are they married four years ago, have a three year old and a one year old, and he is 34 and she is 27.
Pardon my agony aunt vibes but settling down at 23 – as the actress did – is just too young.
Sure, some people meet their soulmate in their early twenties.
But these rarities are the exception, not the rule. Who truly knows who they are and who they might eventually become when they are still in their 20s?
Sophie is on her own journey of self-discovery.
Life is a journey, folks. Not a destination.
I AM the mother of two boys – one is an adult, the other still of school age.
I feel I’ve brought up two respectful, empathetic, understanding young men.
But I guess they didn’t have much choice when I’m an uncompromising feminist.
However, just as women face new issues and battles, we need to acknowledge that men do, too.
Men’s mental health has been shamefully ignored for too long.
Males have pretty consistently accounted for three-quarters of all suicides in the UK since the mid-1990s.
And then there are problems of toxic masculinity and misogyny that thrive online.
Men need as much support and guidance to navigate the modern landscape as women.
We’d do well to listen to their needs and concerns.
So I say, why not have a Minister For Men?
JOE SWASH has hit back at plane passengers who give him and wife Stacey Solomon dirty looks when they jet off on holidays with their kids.
The couple have three children under five. Joe is also dad to Harry, 16, while Stacey has Zachary, 15, and 11-year-old Leighton from previous relationships.
I have to admit that the second you board a plane without children, you are praying that you won’t be seated next to the newborn in row 13 or the toddler by the fire exit.
But as a mother of four I now take a different approach because of the experiences I’ve been forced to endure.
Fourteen years ago I travelled single-handedly on a 13-hour flight with four children, aged 15, nine, five and one.
It was one of the most testing times of my life.
The baby puked on the teenager before we even got on the plane and he didn’t have a change of clothes to hand.
The two middle children fought for the entire flight and the tot refused to sleep. For the WHOLE journey.
It’s chaos with lots of children. It can also be chaos with one child.
At least Joe wasn’t on the Delta flight from Atlanta to Barcelona that was forced to U-turn because of a passenger’s explosive diarrhoea.
I’d take a plane full of children over that mess.
