Joanna Briscoe: The boomerang generation and me

Schadenfreude is the spice of life, and it's always cheering to hear of other people's snivelling little screw-ups. It puts our own 3am yelps of recalled humiliation into perspective. Recent Cambridge-based research has proved that life is pants for youngsters who, paralysed by too many choices and merrily wolfing down drugs, are sinking into bouts of apathy and confusion. Dr Terri Apter of Newnham College has found that people in their twenties are skulking back to

mummy and daddy, regressing to teenage behaviour, and reeling from the shock of the real world.

Apparently, 50 per cent of those surveyed do not believe they will ever achieve their ambitions. No wonder. Fame is the religion of our time, so if you haven't become a RI:SE presenter or a member of Liberty X by the time you're 23, shame on you: you may as well return to your foetid teenage bedroom, gulp tequila from your Gryffindor mug, sting your mum for pesto, and read Jockey Slut by torchlight.

That's people in their twenties. Excuse me, but what about those in their thirties? We're closet pubescents too, and we want some attention, please. We too would like to be in a survey, sulk, masturbate, and skive off work due to an existential crisis. Ask any fully fledged adult, and, in a moment of honesty, you will get the same answer: their internal age is that of a minor. Ricocheting between 15 and 18, I for one have never got over the terrible surprise that is adulthood. I'm still shaken that the world isn't, after all, a Top of the Pops set, with model agents and West End directors lurking on Monopoly board landmarks waiting to spot me and allocate top grades in the equivalent of A-levels for adults (romantic expertise, vaulting career, social manner, etc).

In a state of amazed indignation, I negotiate lying builders, routes to Ikea, nepotism, endowment policies and all the other bathetic surprises that real life springs. I supervise a two-year-old and work like a lunatic. However, I'd love a prima-donnary fit of "Boomerang generation" self-doubt if it meant I could spend a day tooth-combing Friendsreunited, pissed on cheap cider with dirty hair. When, twice a year, I stumble upon a half-hour slot between features and novel-writing and childcare, my preferred activity is to read Heat in my dressing gown with some Doritos and sour sweets, then have a bath, a cry, and a vicious gossip session.

My dearest fantasy, in fact, is to combine real life with teen life and attend an Enid Blyton-style school (firm but fair, towers and clifftops), specialising purely in literature, in order to be made to write novels faster, with deadline-enforcing prep, promising grades and the odd winning spurt of rebellion. I do not want to take up pervy suspender-based practices in the suburbs or attend a ghastly Skool's Out-style disco; I simply want to regress, chivvied and relieved of responsibility by some amorphous authority figure.

Men have it easier. Boys will be boys; boys like toys. They can fish, wield guns, and even – if they are Kevins – spend the summer dressed in full football gear with no ball in sight, the equivalent of wearing a Spiderman outfit at 40. Scalextric sets are classic artefacts, and many a Spacehopper can be bought in the name of irony, whereas we women wouldn't dream of strolling around en pointe in our tutus in a display of wish fulfilment akin to wearing a Man United strip. And sadly we in our thirties cannot boomerang back, grizzling, to the wrinklies at home. Nor can we feature, suffering from "decision paralysis", in Dr Apter's survey, to be presented at next month's conference, "From child to adult – Why is it taking longer and does it matter?". Rather churlish, I call it.

We'll be the judge

Decision paralysis does not, however, seem to trouble the current slew of celebrities ill-advisedly affiancing themselves. Strangely, it's perfectly possible to anticipate the horrid mistakes that the famous are about to make while they themselves are still loved up and trading bling-bling. Just by glancing at the odd blurred pap shot, absorbing a bit of body language, and laughing at their substance abuse histories, we can read their futures as easily as a smelly old tart in a caravan claiming psychic powers. Let us consider the case of Pamela Anderson and her fiancé, a newt with a pubey goatee who sings songs with clever titles like "Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp". Kid Rock claims he's "not really a bad boy", just a plain old family man. He will marry the actress in the spring, replacing husband number one, a jailed wife-beater.

Just don't do it, Pammy love.

One of my favourite snorey, dribbly, falling-asleep games with my partner is the lazily entitled "We'll be the Judge". Example: "Madge and thingy?" A sleep-blurred pause. "Two more years."... "OK. We'll be the judge – Tara PT and her next boyfriend?"... "Dunno –." Sudden grunt. "'Bout a month?" Sometimes a confused, 4am argument breaks out. "The Beckses're in love. You can see it." Pause. "Yes, but he's got that glinty straying look in his ..." A grunt, a snort, and a comatose silence.

Prime candidates this week are, of course, J-Lo and Ben Affleck. At 32, with 20 months' worth of marriage and a brace of husbands under her belt, J-Lo is unlikely to couple quietly with another vast ego. Then there's the singer Nicole Appleton, whose every glance and moue betrays a hungry, bottomless crush upon the simian sire of her child. Of her impending wedding to Mr Gallagher, Nicole is quoted as saying, "Liam's leaving me in charge." Well of course he is.

"We'll be the Judge" is also a therapeutic tool. Even if you've almost fallen asleep on a prickly quasi-row, you can suddenly bark out "Julia Roberts and Danny Moder?" and forget your own relationship troughs while you play God, and cackle at people like Danniella Westbrook, she who once married a man she met in a garage forecourt a few weeks earlier, and ended up selling his mum's vacuum cleaner for drugs. Oh yes, and there's the war in Iraq to think about. That can wait till the morning, then.

Backlash, backlash, backlash

Perhaps Andrew Davies should compose celebrity wedding vows. The wordy one now writes everything, including the competing costume dramas Daniel Deronda on BBC1 and ITV's Doctor Zhivago. He also adapted last month's lady-love spectacular, Tipping the Velvet. The Darcy dive in his Pride and Prejudice was the sexiest moment in the history of costume drama – but hark! What are those well-bred murmurings of rebellion? Davies is a particularly British kind of hero – the Beeb, the classics, huwwah – but tallest poppy syndrome flourishes on our temperate isle, and the rumblings of backlash are already audible as his corsets dice with caricature. Is Davies our new Ken Russell?

Backlash is an inevitable component of success. Thus Jamie Oliver the national treasure has turned trowelly lipped irritant banging on about Sainsbury's. Next up is surely young Harry Potter – so far so sacrosanct. The actor on the current film poster resembles a stubbled 36-year-old PE teacher, and now that J K Rowling is contented, up the duff and coining it, how long will we miserable Brits, who never did fancy a meritocracy, tolerate the phenomenon? From superhero to sebaceous squirt? We'll be the judge.

Rowan Pelling is away