John Walsh: There must be an opening for czar of middle-aged moaning

Tales Of The City

Joan Bakewell, the evergreen broadcaster and writer, has been appointed Voice of Older People by Harriet Harman. I suppose we must be thankful that Ms Bakewell's title isn't Wrinkly Tsar, to go with the Government's Drugs Tsar and Youth Tsar, but her brief is radical: to make younger people aware of the everyday irritations that drive elderly people nuts. Things like the lack of lifts in stations, of lavatories in shopping centres, and of anyone to hoist your luggage into a locker on a plane (since the staff aren't allowed to).

Ms Bakewell says she began to get cross about such things on her 70th birthday and voiced her annoyance in a newspaper column. Suddenly, she writes, "audiences at literary festivals crowded around to share their concerns". She has become an elegant walking compendium of elderly whinges, which will contribute towards an age-equality bill.

Jolly good. But why should The Old get special treatment? Will nobody speak for the mid-50s generation who are neither ancient nor modern, but stuck in-between? Could I put myself forward as the Voice of People Knocking On a Bit, and alert young folk to the irritations we routinely face? OK then.

1. The vanishing from the face of the earth of any off-the-peg jackets above size 44. Audiences at literary festivals crowd round me, crying, "Why are you wearing that hideous jumper?"

2. The gnawing sensation that, if you haven't read La Divina Commedia in the original Italian by 55, you may have missed your slot.

3. The genial chap in Currys, who guides you through the pixel count of several high-definition TVs for 45 minutes before pointing out that there are none actually in stock, nor any plans to get some in.

4. The application form that, instead of asking for your date of birth, asks which your age range you're in. Are you 35-45? 45-55? Or 55-70? Why the sudden leap into antiquity – as if, by becoming 55, you've hit the Final Days?

5. The way jovial cockneys in shops call you "young man" – as Brian Clough used to address ageing hacks at press conferences. Blokes do not respond to displays of gallantry from other blokes.

6. The concern you feel that you're not concerned enough about things that shock your age group. Like Ed Stourton being shocked by the Queen Mum saying the EEC would "never work, with all those Huns, wops and dagoes", which is so obviously a joke about prejudice, you despair that such a clever man could have missed it?

7. The general consensus that Jonathan Ross, at 47, is "old" – or, at least, old enough to know better.

8. The realisation that what inhibits your going to see Eric Clapton play live isn't the impossibility of buying a ticket but your reluctance to pay 70 blooming quid for it. Is one acquiring sense, or getting meaner? Or just poorer?

Baz Luhrmann, the Aussie director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, has a new movie out. It's called Australia, written by him, it cost £77m to make, and stars Nicole Kidman as an English milady who inherits an Oz cattle ranch in 1939. She falls foul of rival ranch-owners, and lights out across the mighty landscape with thousands of cattle and a handsome drover, played by Hugh Jackman, with whom she falls in love. Sound good to you? I should say that the Jackman character dies at the end, but you're grown up enough to handle that, aren't you? The studio bosses at 20th Century Fox weren't. When they learnt of the "negative responses" the film received at test screenings, they persuaded Baz to rewrite the ending and keep Jackman alive, fit and well. It would, they assured him, make for a more rewarding box-office experience.

I find it amazing that a director of Luhrmann's distinction could let studio accountants dictate the outcome of his work; did his contract give them the right to monkey around with it as they liked? He should take his name off the credits – but then, he doesn't want to risk missing an Oscar. Tell you what, Baz. Why not go back to your other movies and rewrite them, too? So that Satine in Moulin Rouge doesn't die of consumption at the end; she's diagnosed with nothing more than a nose-bleed. And Romeo and Juliet, far from dying in the tomb, audition for the leads in a high-school musical that brings their warring families together? Just think of the box-office.