HOW TO BE SEVENTY-ONE

Guest columnist Elton McGrievance Cohen II

Good afternoon class. I am Elton McGreivance Cohen II, Emeritus Professor of  Divergent Cohesive Reasoning & Coffee at The Sorbonne (2025 -2025). If the name sounds familiar, you may have encountered my annoyingly famous father Elton McGrievance Cohen, author of the runaway best-seller "What the Fuck is Going On Here" an incisive and widely misunderstood satire of geo--political economics in the wake of the first Trump Presidency, you know, the one where he was content just to bask in the glory of being declared a stable genius. Oh happy days.

 

This time round some damn fool has taught him how to pronounce macro-economics without spitting out the spare adderil he keeps in that pouch in his cheeeks and he's off to everywhere all at once to fix everything before next Tuesday... "Hey Fritz, nice little economy you've got here, be a shame if anything happened to it, a damn shame" But back to me. 

  As most of you probably know, I am happily married to conceptual sculptor & Pagan Practise Activist Mortedella-Heeildegard Von Bingen auf Klimt & live in the heavily-renovated Queenscliff Gun Emplacement with our twins Talmud and Ostentatia & their emotional support alpaca Gender Fluidity. This sort of complex curated lifestyle doesn't come cheap, but fortunately

 I have money. In addition to the fuck-load of money we pull in from the family Punctuation empire, I pulled myself up by the bootstraps by working eighteen hours a day forging bitcoin until I had the foresight to set up a satirical blog. I mean don't let this get around but this satire lark is a fucking goldmine. The kind of money we're talking, just insane, Unbelievable. 

But what, I hear you grumble, what qualifies this geezer to lecture me about how to be 71. Well. To begin with, I own the place. And,  as of today I have been 71 for  seven months.Yes people. seven fucking months of lived experience . In Australia and the less-discerning parts of New Zealand that makes me an expert. Gold Standard. 

And I've got the tv interviews to prove it. I have consulted on Good Morning Australia, interrogated the topic on Morning in Merimbula, gave it a wink and a nod Gidday Gundagai, and For Fuck's Sake Freemantle Will you Wake Up It's Bad Enough You're Four Hours Behind to begin with. And I will always cherish the hour I spent talking to a camera down a mine in Kalgoorli only to discover it was a zoom-call to a video sex worker who was just a little confused bout what I wanted her to do. It was a humbling experience. So there you go people, I've done the time, done the hard yards and my own research. I know stuff. And if you are prepared to sit down, shut up, sit up straight and listen . 

(2 Don't die. You just can't die. Fucks the whole thing up. You can't just get to 71 and then relax. You have to BE  71 for a whole year. 365 and a quarter days.

Look we're all busy people, let's cut to the chase:

  It's all about the sox. Brightly coloured sox. How do I know ? Because I have been 71 for 212 days and have bought 27 pairs of brightly coloured socks. I even flew to NZ to get especially colourful and especially woollen socks. ( Also, NZ is home to people like the genius 23 yr old farmer from Naseby who claims to have fed his sheep magic mushrooms and grown rainbow wool in the second year. Sir, I applaud your thinking and call bullshit. But hey it's the thought that counts . Yeah ? Yeah nah. Besides everyone knows mescaline is toxic for ruminants and you have to give sheep Amanita Muscaria if you want rainbow wool.