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So, it has been suggested that turning 40 is the new 30. What exactly does this mean? Are we going to see Club 18-30 holidays replaced by Club 28-40? In which case is 30 also the new 20? What it means is that where once turning 30 was where we looked and pondered at our lives and set aside all the childish things that we do, we can now do when we are 40. Fantastic. The most irresponsibly fortunate in Western society have managed to prolong their apparent immaturity for a further ten years and suffer even more monumentously when hitting their half century!

Did you know that in Madagascar the average life expectancy is only 36.5 years? If we lived there I doubt that we make so much of a fuss about turning 40. Probably be a bit of a celebration, in fact, I'd probably give a quirky smile about not being dead. Would The Queen send me a telegram? What a different world it would be. My father turned 40 quite recently and believe me there was no smiling from him. Celebrate turning 40? Are we mad, that is a gloomy age where the world is going to start crashing down around us, or so we think.

There has recently been a new wave of fortysomethings that have revolutionised our gloomy, middle-aged crisis outlook on life. "Oh my god she's as old as mother!" That was my exclamation as I sat druelling over Demi Moore. Sexy stars have totally started to remake how we see middle age and it's certainly nothing like my grandparents would have experienced. I'm pretty sure my grandmother never danced around in a spandex suit in her 40s but nobody seems to be blinking an eyelid when Madonna does it!

Celebrities are leading the way in showing that youth does not necessarily have a bearing on sex appeal, Demi Moore, Teri Hatcher, Heather Locklear, Madonna, Sandra Bullock and Brooke Shields to name but a few. There is a sort of age related je ne sais quoi about these older ladies that I and it seems many other younger men find very attractive. These are not the 40 somethings that I've always known who look after the kids during the day in their big sweater and slippers waiting for hubby to come home so that she can feed him. Oh no, being 40 is still young and hip. Nobody would complain if these fine women were seen on and Club 18 to 30s, sorry, Club 28 to 40s holiday.

These women certainly start to make you believe that 40 is the new 30 but are they just some far fetched exception? These glossy magazines are really just showing us what our partners could look like when they turn 40. Lets be honest, how many people could put their hands up and say your partner looks as good as Demi Moore or as muscle bound as Sylvester Stallone? I shouldn't have thought many could. It is more the media leading us to believe that 40 is the new 30 rather than there being any truth behinds it. These celebrities have to look good if they want to keep their jobs, give me an airbrush and I could probably make anyone look good but unfortunately it doesn't work like that.

All in all, the same doom and gloom is still felt by all when approaching that devilish 40. My wife turned 40 quite recently, I think I'll go and get her out of the bath chair, put her teeth in and find her slippers to see what she thinks about all this.

Learn more about this author, Marc Steel.
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