Aix Everywhere

The Jolly Roger rarely comes into the sight line of the curmudgeonly grandpa character that I have studiously created, and behind which it is thought that I sit in paroxysms of jolly laughter, and when it does it is the skull and cross bones graphic, rather than apprehension of the sudden appearance of ear ringed corsairs with nothing but my booty on their minds, that strikes a chill into my heart as no bones are crosser than mine. There is nothing like age, or the rack, to make one aware of quite how many bones we have and how each of them offers the owner its own particular discomfort. An infinite variety of aches, pains moving willfully from one part of the body to another without notice. It may be that I have not suffered much severe pain in my life, some would say not nearly enough, that makes me acutely aware of the new and annoying behaviour of previously obedient bones and joints. The change that oncoming age brings is a sense of inevitability which is happily completely absent in youth. I remember that as a young man most problems, which were really appetites, were concentrated in the soft tissues of the body, namely stomach and cock. A yearning for Brigitte Bardot was so much easier to relieve without an arthritic wrist.