Cheryl Cole is 27 aka what am I doing with my life?
I used to use the life of Rimbaud as a stick to beat myself with. He’d remade poetry in his own disturbed image by his late-teens, gave up writing entirely at the age of 21, was described by Victor Hugo as “an infant Shakespeare” and disappeared to Africa to become a gun runner before carking it at 37.
I now realise that that was a ridiculous comparison to make. Instead, I’ve moved on to Cheryl Cole. Cheryl Cole, multimillionaire and people’s sweetheart is 27. She’s less than a year older than me. While she swans across my TV screen in a parade of outfits covered in more sequins than any ordinary human being would come into contact with in their entire life, I slump on the sofa being sarcastic about The X-Factor on Twitter.
Finding out how old celebrities are is depressing. When you’re a teenager, famous people almost seem like a kind of uber-adult, an extra-evolved version of humanity. They’re like your mum and dad but on telly or in the movies or putting out ever more disappointing solo albums. But when you grow up, celebrities are suddenly like policemen – all getting younger.
Burbling to Vogue this month (I read the quote in The Sunday Times, honest), Cole says: “I’m 27. I’m a woman, not a girl any more. I really feel that.” Compare that the vast legions of people in their mid-20s just floating listlessly onwards in a post-teen wasteland. I’m four years older than my mum was I was born and I don’t have a plan.
After spending my early 20s with my finger on the fast forward button, madly dreaming of penning novels, writing screenplays, becoming a feted columnist, everything has slowed up. Lacking energy I fire potshots at TV programmes on Twitter and hope that some editor turned deus ex machina will pick me up like a soft toy from a grabber in a seaside arcade.
That’s pretty unlikely. You have to have drive and promote yourself to get ahead and let’s be honest, wittering away on Twitter isn’t doing that. Neither is shaking my fist at the sky towards a god I don’t even believe in whenever I read about a star with a birthdate somewhere south of 1985. Still. Cheryl Cole is 27. There’s a mantra to live by.
P.S Don’t get me started on Will Smith’s daughter Willow, the 9-year-old Jay-Z protege.
