Age before beauty, pearls before swine
Advantages of middle age:
- the decreasing likelihood of one's bosom being regarded as the psychic equivalent of the King's Touch (or possibly the Holy Grail?)
- young men offering one their seat on the Tube (at least, on the days when one is looking particularly like the Lay of the Last Minstrel on a very bad day)
***
Random acts of senseless beauty: guerilla gardening, brightening up urban wastelands (and putting the spring back in the step of Fisher Kings everywhere?).
Am just a little given to qualms over the potential environmental impact of scattering some of those seeds: 'These yellow poppies will grow in both damp and dry conditions and are virulent self-seeders' sounds a bit sinister, and while ivy on buildings may be picturesque, isn't it rather bad for the buildings?
***
And on random acts of beauty, was thinking over the annoying 'Give us a smile, love' thing: to which the response is (alas, they have usually driven on by then), 'Smiles have to be earned: do something that might make me smile'. (Offering seat on crowded tube works for me... Or, of course, not making annoying demands to unreciprocally brighten up some total stranger's life.)