PETER HITCHENS: To my critics who call me 'Boomer', I say this: One day you'll be lucky enough to be old

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Words often fail my 対抗者s, as they tend not to have much in the way of arguments. So in 最近の years, as I 戦う／戦い for facts and logic on anti-social マスコミ, my critics have taken to calling me ‘old’ in the hope of 損失ing me.

A variation on this is to call me a ‘Boomer’, the American 表現 for those such as me born in the 広大な／多数の／重要な Baby Bulge after World War Two (I was born in October 1951).

They do this as if it were a brilliant point. They seem to think that because I am old, therefore I am stupid. They are not at all embarrassed about this, as they would be about 平等に open prejudice on the grounds of race or sex.

My first 返答 to this strange, rather stupid rudeness was to say to myself: ‘Old? Me?’ As 最近の 研究 from Berlin’s Humboldt University shows, the 境界s of age have moved a little その上の away in 最近の years.

Those born in 1911 believed, when they reached 65, that old age began at 71. Those born in 1956 said, at the same 行う／開催する／段階 in their lives, that old age started at 74. But of course I am old, a fact I at first resisted, then 受託するd, and now 活発に welcome. These days I tend to 答える／応じる to this ーするつもりであるd 乱用 by 説 that I hope my critics will one day be lucky enough to be old themselves.

Peter Hitchens in 1969 after 存在 立ち退かせるd from a hippy squat in Piccadilly, London

Hitchens, here in 1984 just off Russia's Red Square, 証言，証人／目撃するd the 崩壊（する） of?共産主義 while living in the country

If they are, they will find one thing, that we who are old do not in general feel that we are. We 受託する it as a fact, but I am essentially the same person who 抗議するd pretty vigorously against the Vietnam War in 1968, in London’s Grosvenor Square, where the American 大使館 then was.

As it happens, I am as sure as ever that I was 権利 to do so. The historians have definitely come 負かす／撃墜する on the 味方する of the anti-war movement. A picture still 存在するs of this 見解／翻訳／版 of me, in 事例／患者 I was inclined to forget or 抑える this fact.

In truth, as a minor celebrity I can, with a few clicks of a computer mouse, see my 前進する into pensionable age illustrated with many photographs and ビデオs. TV clips 現れる from the late 1990s onwards, 記録，記録的な／記録するing the 半端物 behaviour of my hair, on 長，率いる and 直面する, the curious 不本意 of any 着せる／賦与するs to fit my squat 小作農民 でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる, whether I am thin (occasionally) or (more often) fat.

耐えるd come and go, starting out dark brown and becoming grey. During the 広大な／多数の／重要な Panic over Covid my hair grows to prodigious lengths as an unhinged 政府 has 法令d that it is too dangerous for anyone to get の近くに enough to me to 削減する it. Oh, very 井戸／弁護士席, then.

Had it gone on much longer I had planned to 可決する・採択する a 十分な-規模 Karl Marx look in 抗議する at the idiocy of our 支配者s. The exciting success and predictable 影響 of a 厳しい diet (kippers and cabbage, 加える Listerine mouthwash) can also be traced. So can a lot of other changes, of mind and of direction.

At what 行う／開催する／段階 in all this did I think I was growing old? Never, until the jibes began ? after which I thought I had better enjoy it. As that 罰金 小説家 Kingsley Amis said of another 必然的な part of life (death), you don’t have to 適用する for it or 列 up for it or collect it. ‘They bring it to you ? 解放する／自由な!’

Hitchens returns to Russia after ten years in 2002 to see if life has 改善するd now that the country is no longer under the Soviet 政権

会合 Bhutan's then home 長官 Jigme Thinley at his office in the Dzong in the 資本／首都 Thimphu in 2004

Now at? 72, Hitchens tells his critics that one day they'll be lucky enough to be old

So here I am, past three 得点する／非難する／２０ years and ten, more than two years into extra time and sticking 堅固に to the 見解（をとる） that I cannot really complain about what happens next. My 世代 have not in general 扱う／治療するd their 団体／死体s as 寺s and every few weeks another sixties 激しく揺する 星／主役にする, 荒廃させるd by Bourbon and コカイン, bites the dust, often rather younger than me.

The 広大な／多数の／重要な 会・原則s of my 時代 grow fainter and 女性. I used to wonder whether The Times, that mighty 組織／臓器, would give me an obituary when I died. Now I wonder instead which of us will be the first to go.

And then there are the advantages. I am old enough to have been educated before the 革命. I knew England before the roads were so 十分な of cars that children could not be 許すd out on their own.

I know what ‘Button A’ and ‘Button B’ were in the days when we had telephone boxes. I’ve eaten 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業s of Fry’s ‘Five Boys’ chocolate. I know things about history and poetry that most people don’t even know they don’t know.

What I used to (rightly) regard as a pretty ragged education now makes me look like an 知識人 (a description I 絶対 拒絶する, as I can remember what really 井戸／弁護士席-educated people were like, and I can also remember proper teachers). I have failed an examination. I saw 表明する steam locomotives hissing and clanking into 駅／配置するs on winter evenings, glowing fiery red and orange - and it was normal.

I saw the 王室の 海軍’s last 広大な／多数の／重要な 戦艦, HMS 先導, 牽引するd to the breakers on a 蒸し暑い summer afternoon in 1960. I saw and smelt Paris almost 60 years ago, before it was modernised. I heckled the 自由主義の leader Jeremy Thorpe in 1974 on the steps of 10 負かす／撃墜するing Street (then open to all) as he went in to discuss a 連合 with Ted ヒース／荒れ地. I saw the 深い blue 成層圏 and the curve of the earth’s surface from the flight deck of Concorde.

I saw one of the last 広大な／多数の／重要な 高級な trains of America, the Southern 三日月, pull out of Washington’s Union 駅／配置する on its way to New Orleans, with white-coated waiters serving 造幣局 juleps to the lucky 乗客s.

I 列d up at 負かす／撃墜するing Street 歓迎会s to be welcomed by Margaret Thatcher, who first took my 手渡す and then pulled me はっきりと 今後s and past her, to let me know that I, a person of no account, was not 推定する／予想するd to ぐずぐず残る in her presence. I was told to sit 負かす／撃墜する and stop 存在 bad by the 未来 Sir Anthony Blair after I asked him an ぎこちない question at a 圧力（をかける） 会議／協議会.

I many times passed through the Berlin 塀で囲む, and 観察するd the gigantic Red Army roaring about the streets and roads of East Germany, and shaking the Soviet-controlled sky with sonic にわか景気s. I stood in the 氷点の snow, warmed by a pair of 共産主義者-built long johns, as Marxism-Leninism 崩壊（する）d in Prague in 1989.

I was canvassed for my 投票（する） (which I didn’t have) by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. I watched a Soviet 海軍 海軍大将 tip a plate of pies into his briefcase at a Kremlin 歓迎会, because at that time even he could not get decent food in the Moscow shops.

I was 脅すd almost out of my wits by Islamist ギャング（個々）s in Mogadishu. I’ve …に出席するd divine service in a 核の ミサイル 潜水艦 and walked まっただ中に the 放射性の dust of a 核の 実験（する） 場所／位置. I’ve been chased 負かす／撃墜する a Berlin street by the East German People’s Police (I ran faster than they did), and been 辞退するd 入ること／参加（者） to a rather 利益／興味ing-looking 妨げる／法廷，弁護士業 in North Korea.

I’ve seen chain ギャング（団）s at work, two American 死刑執行s, one Soviet 大虐殺 and several Nazi 集中 （軍の）野営地，陣営s. I’ve crossed the International Date Line backwards from Monday morning to the previous Sunday afternoon, on a 旅行 between Siberia and Alaska which I 疑問 anyone could ever make now. Don’t you wish you were old too?