ARE all your favourite tunes now being played on Radio 2, proving you’re no longer a cool kid and are in fact quite old?
Try these coping strategies:
* Convince yourself that the youth would all be listening to Radio 2 if they knew how good bands like The Verve were, instead of their so-called music which is just noise.
* Switch your car radio to Radio 4 just before you park every night. After five minutes of Today turning back to Radio 2 will make you feel like a teenager at a grandparent’s birthday party.
* Move your hips from side-to-side in a pathetic mockery of dancing when Snap! is played while you’re doing the gardening.
* When hearing Steve Wright play Cigarettes and Alcohol after you’ve given up both makes you feel horribly middle-aged, remind yourself that at least you’re not an aged punk convinced you’ve remained true to your anti-establishment values.
* Nostalgic for the 1990s? A quick listen to Cerys Matthews will remind you that many of the bands, for example Catatonia, were crap.
* Challenge yourself with Ken Bruce’s PopMaster quiz and enjoy a glow of pride on knowing the answers while failing to admit that this empty accumulation of useless knowledge is in itself a sign of age.
* Realise that growing older has its benefits, such as being wiser, more tolerant of different viewpoints and never having to endure the atonal instrumental breakdown at a Spiritualized gig again.
* If all else fails, accept you really are a Radio 2 listener facing irrelevance, retirement and death, but at least Sara Cox understands you.
