This news from today's London Times offers hope for those of us who if not yet over the hill, are at least in sight of the summet.,Br.You will be relieved to know I'm not one of those who've applied to join!
Story follows:
Kizzi Nkwocha, a publicist, has been advertising for performers aged 50 and over with a view to assembling — in front of the TV cameras — a singing pop group of mature vintage, a "sort of pre-geriatric Hear'Say", as one commentator described it.

Nkwocha is said to be looking for "the hidden Tom Joneses, the pop stars who may have been overlooked because of the obsession with boy bands", and he has struck a chord — more than 2,500 hopefuls replied to his ad.

And why shouldn't they? After all, there is nothing wrong with ageing pop stars, per se. The Rolling Stones are still superb performers. Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana retain their technical skill as guitarists, while drawing inspiration from a deeper pool of emotions than was available in their youth.

And at this year's Bishopstock Festival, the UK's biggest blues festival, Ray Charles (70), Taj Mahal (60) and Buddy Guy (64) will top the bill.

So it doesn't require too great a leap of the imagination to dream up a fantasy "man band" from the ranks of today's fiftysomething stars.

A line-up of crooners featuring, say, Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Van Morrison, Tom Jones and Bryan Ferry would be unlikely to find a rehearsal room big enough to accommodate a collection of such huge egos.

Old rivalries and jealousies would quickly surface. Nor would it be easy to locate a song that could encompass such a diversity of singing styles, from Jagger's yobbo blues shout to Ferry's lounge-lizard drawl.

If backing musicians were needed, we could put Sir Paul McCartney on bass, Jeff Beck on guitar, Sir Elton John on piano and Charlie Watts on drums. Again, the likely result would be collective anarchy and musical cacophony as the participants jostled for pole position, while their managers met in the next room to try to arrive at a mutually agreeable formula for dividing the royalties.

Of course, it's a bit late to start forming a band in your fifties, at least when everyone is meant to be on an equal footing. The Traveling Wilburys — featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, the late Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne — was a rare exception, and they were mostly in their forties and doing it on a strictly part-time basis.

But pop is no longer exclusively a young person's game; older musicians have more experience and a stronger sense of identity than the ingenues who were recruited to Hear'Say. The business of manufacturing a pop band is probably best left to those whose musical personalities are as unsullied as a blank sheet of paper.

And just because the youngsters have proved that they can make a terrible (if profitable) pop group out of thin air doesn't mean the 50-year-olds have to go and do it as well, does it?

RtS