The way it should be is not the way it is...

Why isn't life simple?

• When I was a young teenager, my local radio station played the music I wanted to hear and a local department store sold the kind of clothes I wanted (my Mum) to buy (for me).
• When I was an older teenager, BBC Radio 1 played the music I wanted to hear and Top Man sold the clothes I wanted to buy.
• As an undergrad student, there wasn't really a radio station that played what I wanted to hear and clothes came from Burtons.
• As a postgrad student, Virgin radio played the music I wanted to hear and River Island was the shop of choice.
• As a late 20 something, Virgin continued to play the music I wanted to hear, but I found myself shopping in Next for clothes.
• In my early 30s I found myself listening to BBC Radio 2 (during the day, never in the evenings) and clothes seemed to come from Gap or Next.
• Now in my late 30s, I find myself listening to Planet Rock or 96.3 Rock Radio (thanks to a DAB radio) and clothes seem to come mostly from Gap or Fat Face.

Why couldn't things like radio stations and clothes shops just make life easy for us? Why don't they just age with us? Every 5 years or so, the BBC should invent a new radio station which should age along with its listeners. And a new clothes chain should appear, targeting one age group and then aging with that age group. It would be a much better system.

You see, as I approach the transition from thirtysomething into fortysomething (not for another couple of years, mind) I find myself wondering where I'll be buying clothes from and what I'll be listening to in a few years time...