Three recent experiences that made me feel young again.

1)   October 20^th.  I celebrated my birthday with a divinely decadent lunch with Trudy at a favourite restaurant, Alain Llorca in St Paul de Vence.  Chef Alain at the helm, wife Virginie lighting up front of house, a table on the terrasse overlooking the village – courgette flowers, sea bass, lobster washed down with a chilled Les Pucelles Puligny-Montrachet – after an hour wandering around Antibes market.  Felt half my age.

2)   Spent two weeks in my old stomping ground – the Middle East – touring and speaking to YPO (Young President’s Organisation) in Tunis, Cairo, Beirut, Kuwait, Doha, Dubai and Muscat.  Highlights included a three hour session with 12 teenagers (YPO members’ children) in Oman, a meeting with an old friend  I hadn’t seen for 35 years, a lunch in one of Cairo’s oldest restaurants – Al Saeed – with a Middle East advertising legend, Tarek Nour, an insightful, private dinner with six eminent Doha leaders as the Khasshoggi scandal broke and renewing old friendships in Beirut with Maya Es-Said.

Reminded me of my Middle East days with Gillette, Procter & Gamble and Pepsico (1972 – 1987).  I felt 30 again.

3)   And then – forever young indeed – I remembered 1964 – as a teenager completely besotted with Joan Baez – an early (and lifelong) heroine.  We had front row seats last Saturday at Phoenix’s 2600 intimate theatre in the round (opened in 1963) – Phoenix Celebrity Theatre – for an evening with Joan Baez.  We sang Amazing Grace together – all of us.  Don’t think twice, it’s alright, There but for fortune, It’s all over now Baby Blue – and she closed her encore with Forever Young – after firing us all up with a poem she’s still writing – urging us to Stand Up and Fight.

77 years young and still urging us Onwards.

‘May you always be courageous,

Stand upright and be strong,

And may you stay

Forever Young’.

Bob Dylan

KR