I’m well into my 70s now and like to spend an hour or two on Dartmouth’s South Embank­ment in the morning, pondering the great imponderable and wondering where it will all end. I’ve no idea, but with any luck it will be close to a pub for a last drink.

One must develop a philosophical state of mind to the current world and I like to think I have, despite this a young friend of mine who was studying at university, once said to me, you are the most cynical person I know. I replied I’m not a cynic, I’m a realist, to which he responded that’s what all the cynics say. Which just goes to show you the utter futility of engaging a 20-year- old ‘know-it-all’ student in debate.

I do have some faults, don’t we all? Oh all right, then perhaps it’s just me but, for which I place the blame squarely on the modern world, one of my pet hates currently is the toilet paper makers habit of putting excessive amounts of glue at the start of a roll of toilet paper which results in shredded strips of paper instead of the anticipated sheets, it drives me mad.

Other than that I’m a very placid person, though I will confess to being annoyed about the slovenly dress and grooming of certain members of the public and surprisingly enough it is not the young, despite the fact they do like to display their grubby pants to all and sundry by wearing their jeans at half mast.

No, it’s the older people who, for some unfathomable reason adorn heads with pony tails, they gather together every available wisp of hair from their sparsely thatched craniums and fashion the most rudimentary pony tail, which they then secure with a fragment of ribbon, possibly from a box of chocolates. Perhaps they like to imagine they are 17th century seafaring men.

When I was younger the only people sporting pony tails were young females.

Not that hair is the oldies’ only problem. Their penchant for wearing the clothing of 11-year-old Boy Scouts of some 40 or 50-odd years ago, especially the baggy khaki shorts so hated by the Scouts at the time –?yes, I was one.

And the sight of their spindly white legs and tatty sandals worn sockless, of course, are enough to turn the most robust of stomachs.

And then there is facial hair, disgusting and unhygienic. How on earth can anyone consume anything through a layer of wiry hair.

I’ve been having nightmares lately. I’m sitting on the embankment when a hideous old man appears from nowhere, spindly pony tail dangling from his head, his bewhiskered chin dripping globules of cold porridge down his front and shredded toilet paper dangling from the leg of his oversized shorts.

John McHale

Carey Road, Dartmouth