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Date added: 30.4.2015
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Each generation supposedly dents the world a little in its image, and thus leaves a legacy to those who come next.The Baby Boomers have not so much dented the world as given the place a terrific whack with a sledge hammer.This cohort of men andMoreEach generation supposedly dents the world a little in its image, and thus leaves a legacy to those who come next.The Baby Boomers have not so much dented the world as given the place a terrific whack with a sledge hammer.This cohort of men and women was born into the rubble of post-war rationing and reconstruction. Before anything else defined them they were the longed-for sons and daughters of a war generation, and the value which their damaged parents invested in them – each child a precious offering of renewal – helps explain the Baby Boomers’ famous sense of fun and entitlement.During their own lifetimes the Baby Boomers became the largest, most successful and richest generation that history had ever seen. As war time had fostered solidarity, peace time nurtured the individual. In the West, millions of individuals competed to do better, to make more money, to enjoy more leisure time. Darkness and fear were banished. Food, drink, cars, houses, holidays, medicine, technologies – everything was consumed in a glorious, non-stop feast. Cities blossomed, airplanes cross-crossed the oceans, music got louder, everyone got better looking. Everything was opened up, examined, talked about. Not all of it has been good.Only now is their grip on global affairs beginning to relax- some are already dead, and the rest are beginning to deteriorate. Even the Baby Boomers cannot prevent the rotting of the human brain, the decay of the human body. As they approach death, this generation has much to contemplate. Luckily, the prevailing mindset of the Baby Boomer, even in his dotage, is can-do and emphatically hungry for experience and success and the adulation of his peers and these winning characteristics have sustained a consensus that the glass is still half full and, with some ingenuity and elbow grease, and some old fashioned good luck, there is no reason why it couldn’t be filled right up to the lip.Simon Tindall is a Baby Boomer. The fortune he commands, his mobility and independence from any force save gravity and the English law – this personal freedom is unprecedented in history and it has accumulated effortlessly to Simon. Does he deserve it? Well he deserves it no more and no less than any man. Has he earned it? In his way, and in his context, yes he has. Simon has worked hard, he has made an early start day after day, smiling and full of chutzpah and smartly dressed- he has greased and deferred and weighed-in to situations skilfully enough to thrive in a multinational organisation crammed with other talented, ambitious men, he has got several important decisions right and he has possessed the initiative to pick up the phone or to jump on a plane when no other course of action was appropriate.Simon is no hero. He is just another human being. More than anything else he has been lucky: out of every possible combination available to him through history, Simon was born white and European in the year 1953. This is his most brilliant achievement.But his luck is about to run out. Fifty-Nine Years Four Days by Alex Hickman