The world is run by middle-aged men, although sometimes, if you are a middle-aged man, it doesn’t feel like it. No other socio-demographic group is subject to such ridicule, contempt or sarcastic admonishment. There seems to be something intrinsically funny about everything that the middle-aged man does, whether it is planning barbecues in the comfort zone of his back garden or plotting to climb Everest. He is a bore or a charlatan; preparing early for death or clinging pointlessly to the life-affirming qualities of youth. A middle-aged man in love is absurd. His wish to drive a fast car is the sign of existential crisis. His jeans mean that he refuses to grow up. Listening to the anthems of his youth on a rackety turntable is nostalgic tristesse; listening to 50 Cent on a newly-acquired i-Pod means he is half a dollar short, at the very least, of proper maturity.

And yet it is the most fragile of human conditions, middle age. It demands the most delicate of balancing acts as we lean comfily on the experiences of a life half-lived and yet feel the need to look forward to novel challenges. We are worldly wise but yearn for fresh adventure. We will almost certainly have dealt with burdens and bereavements and have come out the other side, trying to invest emotionally in a future that we now know will turn out to be the usual battered compromise between aspiration and bracing reality. That requires a certain amount of irony and courage.