Most books about growing older tell you to slow down, eat more fibre and take up watercolours. This is not one of those books.
This is a training programme. A straight-faced, deadpan field guide that treats your golden years as what they actually are: the first time in your life you have the money, the time and the total lack of supervision required to do exactly as you please.
Across fifteen chapters, you (or the magnificent troublemaker you're buying this for) will be trained in the complete syllabus of disgraceful ageing: what to wear when you've stopped asking permission, what to say when you've stopped biting your tongue, what to conveniently forget and what to remember with suspicious accuracy, how to spoil grandchildren to military standard, alarm adult children for sport, nap tactically, spend the inheritance cheerfully, and finish it all with a send-off your family will talk about for fifty years.
There are quizzes. There are field exercises. There is a 52-week Bucket List of Misbehaviour, a final exam, and an official Certificate of Disgrace to frame and hang where the family cannot avoid it.
There is also, somewhere in these pages, a joke about a vicar and a greenhouse. It is never told. It doesn't need to be. You'll understand by the end, and you'll have one of your own.
The perfect gift for 60th and 70th birthdays, retirements, Christmas, or any parent who has recently started saying what they actually think. Warm underneath, wicked on the surface, and thoroughly British throughout.
No mindfulness. No chair-based exercise. No apologies.
The years ahead aren't the small print. They're the testimonial pages. Time to start writing.