An early sign of middle age.

"I used to be 'with it'. Then they changed what 'it' was. Now 'it' seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you too." - Abe Simpson.

I'm 32 next month. This feels old. I know to a 50 year old it's nothing - still a shining beacon of youth. I also know to a 20 year old it sounds like the best years of my life are behind me. Being or feeling young or old is relative - there is some truth to that 'only as old as you feel' spiel. Maybe 32 feels old to me because I can remember how it felt to be 17, when the thirties seemed another life away.

Attitudes to certain things change as age increases - I mentioned that already here, but I noticed something this week that is beginning to happen with increasing frequency and is an indication that I'm getting older: I am getting annoyed at the NME.

I've read the NME for years. Loved it for years. For years, it's told me where to find some of the best music on the planet. I always loved the writing; how the writers would describe the music. It's becoming increasingly undeniable to me that the writing is a little youth oriented, and is starting to sound stupid to me. I don't think it's anything to do with the magazine changing, I think it's me. I think I'm getting older, and 'it' is making less and less sense to me, just as Abe Simpson predicted. Take this week's issue. Here are three examples of what I think are supposed to be descriptions of music. "For a man who sings like a dismal hippo, he makes rather a lovely racket." How, pray, is a dismal hippo supposed to sound when he sings? "Like trying to beat out loneliness with a dustbin lid." Um, pardon? Is that anything like The Beatles? "Akin to someone dripping poison in your ear." This is actually supposed to be a recommendation. It is nonsense, and it annoys me because it doesn't tell me how those three songs are supposed to sound. Were I barely five years younger, I don't doubt I'd have loved reading such descriptions of music.

It's not the NME's fault. It just doesn't make sense to me anymore. Guess I'll have to start reading Mojo instead.