Just once, before I die, I want to...
...do something more than grumble to myself when the woman with the car-crash life who's renting the house next to mine starts a shouting match at 3 a.m.; has the police round looking for one of her wayward sons (her front door is currently chipboard because they smashed it down a couple of months back when her dodgy offspring were hiding an underage girl who'd been reported missing); answers the door to some pissed-up paramour at half past midnight and doesn't just tell him to piss off and come back when he's sobered up; throwing crockery and yelling "this is my home!" at the top of her lungs. Nothing violent - just that polite contained anger that we Brits used to be so good at before the advent of Jeremy Kyle and the like.

...Have kids (one full set, with my current ladypartner; not keen on the idea of having more later with someone else.). I've left it a bit late (I'm now 43) but at least I'm actively working on it now.

...Live long enough and keep my marbles long enough to not only see great-grandchildren but have an intelligent conversation with them.

...Be a UK taxpayer at the highest applicable income tax rate and not do anything to minimise my tax liability.

...Act in a speaking part - on stage, tv or film - professionally (it only has to be once, and not for more than Equity minimum). Done loads of amateur stuff, and I'm tolerably good at it (at least as good as some of the pros I've seen, particuarly in some of the soaps) but on the few occasions I've tried to get professional work I've not had any luck.

...Sing in public when it's not a comedy part.

...Learn to play classical guitar.

...Go back to uni and get the degree I should have got when I was 21, but flunked (while the novelty of booze/drugs/clubs/women was still too strong). not going to happen until I get the higher-rate tax job, at least not while this shower of shit are running the higher education system.

...Pay off all my debts, including the mortgage, and have all the money I'm spending on them to myself. Did it once before, just before buying a house, and it felt just dandy.

...Hunt down and kill Neil Hamilton while his horrified harridan wife watches. Then feed fillets of him to her until she chokes. That tosser, as Trade Secretary, decided to ignore an official report that said my then-industry's set-up didn't hurt the consumer interest, and ordered a reorganisation anyway (one which, funnily enough, benefited News International.) putting most of my then colleagues on the dole and forcing me to relocate from the throbbing Metropolis of That London to the land that architecture forgot - Swindon. Then, after he was exposed as a lying money-grabbing conniving cheating bastard with no more right to walk on God's clean Earth than a weasel (©Richard Curtis and Ben Elton), he and his Lady Macbeth of a wife parlayed their borderline criminality into a TV career. At least Ann Widdicombe is making a show of at least trying to learn to dance, you slimy fuckers.

...Get properly, Men's Fitness-front-cover-ly, fit once more before my joints give out. Kurt Russell was 46 when he did it, to film fairly shit scyfy actioner Soldier. Apparently he worked out for four hours a day every day for 18 months to get there*, but he got there, and he was older than me when he did it. *another reason to get highest-rate-tax rich or a professional acting gig; unless you got a couple of hundred grand lying around, or it's your full time job, how else can you afford to spend four hours a day working out AND hold down a full time job and still have any kind of life?

...Write a novel that gets published by an old-fashioned paper-and-ink outfit, which gets optioned for adaptation to film.

...do Salma Hayek, Rachel Weiss, and Eliza Dushku. Not necessarily all at the same time, though I wouldn't complain. Oh, and Makosi off Big Brother, Shilpa Shetty and - just to break the dusky monotony - Christian Hendricks & January Jones out of Mad Men.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Tue 19 Oct 2010, 12:39, 5 replies)

The kid thing - go for it :) I was 43 on Saturday there - first child (a girl) is due any second now :)
(Darth Thump, Tue 19 Oct 2010, 13:35, closed)

Congratulmalations!

( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Tue 19 Oct 2010, 13:56, closed)

I'm 43.
I have a 4 month old son (plus a 6 year old daughter).

I can't begin to say what a fuckup it would have been if I had had kids at 23. I guess I'm going to miss out on grandkids growing up, but all in all I'm glad I waited.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Tue 19 Oct 2010, 14:54, closed)

On the other hand
My parents were 43 when I was born. I would have preferred to have come along a lot earlier when they were young enough to be more active. People were older at a younger age in those days, if you know what I mean.

My biggest about them having me when they were 43 is that there wasn't time to get to know them when we were all fully functioning adults. By the time they'd finished looking after me it was almost time to start looking after them.

I have changed a lot since my dad died eleven years ago and understand him a lot more than I did. Had he and my mum had me just that little earlier, I would have had a much better relationship with him than I did.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 13:21, closed)

I can relate...
...my dad died aged 52 when I was just 21 (clot from busted leg). I'd like to have started earlier, frankly, but I didn't meet up with any women where there was a chance of mutually wanting to give it a go until quite recently.

Which is why I'm hoping I'll be around long enough to get well past that stage myself.
( shinyshinyscalp less a man, more a way of life, Wed 20 Oct 2010, 15:09, closed)