Many people misunderstand the notion of a mid-life crisis.

If you are going to have one you might as well enjoy it. I honestly don’t know why people moan about it. The mid-life crisis is a great excuse for doing exactly what you like and blame it all on some ludicrous psycho-babble such as the ‘male menopause’ - a concept with no scientific basis dreamt up by bitter and twisted fifty-something females. There is a whole industry of pseudo-medicine that invents conditions that don’t really exist - if you’re really lucky you could even get your very own case conference. Whatever, the mid-life crisis a great excuse to buy a Harley Davidson, a Porsche, a jet ski or anything else you fancy.

I bought a teal Fender Stratocaster Custom with noiseless pick ups, silver fittings and abalone inlays. I don’t know what the noiseless pick ups do, I suppose they must be noiseless.

When I was in my early teens I had wanted to play guitar. Like most boys of that age I was mostly interested in getting girls to like me and it seemed playing a guitar was a good idea. Guitars were girl magnets, were they not? They were also really difficult to play and I lacked patience of any sort. I tried the drums - that proved popular with the neighbours. I couldn’t sing, so in the end I gave up. But music was too cool to walk away from and I had a lot of records so, with the help of a schoolmate who was an electronics wiz, I ended up doing discos. At my school at first, but quite quickly round the place. Amazingly we got paid for it too. Weddings and anniversaries at working men’s clubs or being the support act to a Vic Reeves style club singer might not have been artistic fulfilment but they paid pretty well. Girls - well it took me a while but it eventually became clear, even to a dullard like me, that they liked me fine.

I like women. Most of my close friends have been women. I don’t find men and male conversations that interesting and, more often than not, their interests, other than sport, have little in common with my own.

The male traits I find most odd are the aversion to shopping and to having decent shoes. Why would anyone not like shopping?

But there is a point in life when young children make a point of throwing up over you when it can all go pear shaped. It is far easier to retreat into slippers and a bad fleece than it is to make the effort.

Embracing mid-life crisis can end that sartorial torpor - and did you know that trainers are really bad for the feet?

To me a real mid-life crisis doesn’t lie in buying a Harley, nor a Porsche, nor an MX5, nor a Les Paul, nor even that pair of to-die-for purple eelskin boots with silk embroidered dragons*. It lies in thinking old before your time, in acting like a pensioner when you’re only 40 and settling for what life has dealt you.

So if you have a mid-life crisis, have fun – you’re only fortysomething once.

* I do have a pair of purple boots and, yes, they are eelskin but they don’t have silk embroidered dragons. My green ones do though!