Unlike the other people who genuinely believe our six billion co-residents of planet Earth want to hear our every opinion and thought, I was unfazed by the passing of my thirtieth birthday, more of an 'Oh! I'm thirty.' than an 'Oh no! I'm thirty!' moment. I think this stems from the fact that my generation, Generation X as we were called, never really went away.

  Unlike the members of preceeding generations I can listen to "underground" music and go to "underground" gigs without looking like a paedophile who doesn't have whatever it takes to prey on anything too young to drink, and I can do this because what is "underground" has not changed one iota.

  I still pretend I liked [insert a "The ___" band here] the way they were before they "sold out" and became popular even though I have only just heard of them, I still choose my bands, musicians and genres according to how obscure they are, I still pretend I don't find the latest pop music sensation toe-tap-worthy, I still pretend I don't find the the latest 18 year old neo-paedophillic neo-pop-alternative starlet attractive, I still kid myself into thinking I'm an individual, I still get called names by small middle-class white boys wearing silver bulldog chains that are faker than their supuh-gangstuh-nigguh accents because I'm not like them, their only friend, or their salmon-pink, overweight skinhead dad in an extra large football shirt, and therfore must be "Gay" "Emo" or "One o' them Goffs that like dead stuff, innit".

  I also still watch cartoons and childrens television over soap operas and "family entertainment" shows, I play games over doing something serious and productive, I still eat soil for some odd reason, and I still see the worlds problems in that oddly logical and sensible way that most humans seem to lose midway though puberty.
  Through no conscious effort I have somehow avoided being pigeon-holed or put into a demographic.

  Then I saw an advert for a compilation album called "Back to the 90's" which features all of the popular music I pretended to hate during my teenage years, and with that one small event Father Time, in conjunction with some cold-hearted advertising bastards, rubber-stamped the word "old" onto my forhead.
  The world has decided, in it's infinite wisdom, that I am now old enough for my own compilation album, something which, until recently, was reserved for people who remember "the war", know words that you can't find in a dictionary any more, and still don't understand why they can't call their Black Labrador "[something that can't be used because it would violate the rules]".

  But I am not down-hearted. To be honest, the more I think about it the more I think the world can "get bent" or "jog on" (preferrably both), as this decision has probably been made by the same people who decided that pre-teen girls were old enough for their own line of padded bras, the same people who decided that nine year old girls should also be able to wear "wonderbum" jeans with "Sexy" written accross the cheeks, the same people who are responsible for boy bands that seem to be designed to sell sex to children who still think writing X92 on a foggy street-facing window is the pinnacle of funny, the same people who introduced "heroin chic" to the already bulimic, insecurity-riddled world of fasion, and the same people who are trying to guilt-trip any selfish, still alive bastard over the age of fifty into selling their house so their ungrateful, selfish, middle-management children don't have to pay for a funeral that should still be thirty years away.

  So does this mean that I am now consciously choosing to not "grow up", that I am now consciously choosing non-conformity and all black clothes, gowns and suits and a hairstyle that makes me stand out like a tropical fish in a goldfish bowl?
I don't know, and I don't care, because either way I am not going to buy that damned album, or anything else by those people who are bombarding me with adverts designed to make me vulnerable enough to allow them access to my money like I'm some middle eastern country with an untapped oil reserve.

  Or, to put it another, much shorter way: "Baa-llocks."