It’s the night before my fiftieth birthday… and Lizzie’s painting my portrait in the living room.
I’m slumped down on the sofa with my laptop, scouring social media as Lizzie dabs away across the room – where she’s set up her easel.
Occasionally, when I’m trying to think about something, I cup my hand around my chin in an unconscious, Rodinesque manner.
‘Move your hand!’ Lizzie immediately barks – I’m ruining the pose.
After about an hour, Lizzie smiles at me… picks up the small canvas and says ‘ready?’… then turns it around.
‘Great!’ I say. Although actually I’m thinking: Do I really look like that! FUCKING HELL!
Lizzie looks at the canvas again, herself. ‘It looks a bit like a Cézanne,’ she announces, loftily.
Personally, I think this might be overstating things. Unless Lizzie means the fellow in the painting looks a bit like Cézanne himself (which is possible, I guess, if Cézanne ended his life as a grey-bearded, doddery old geezer). Anyway, I just say ‘sure!’ brightly, in response to Lizzie’s Cézanne-comparison, to keep her happy.
So… according to Lizzie – and her paint brushes – this is what I look like, now that I’ve turned 50 (or actually 49 and 364 365ths, because my birthday is tomorrow).
Hmmm. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about it*, while I go and cry into my mug of whatever-I-should-be-drinking-at-this-age (Horlicks?)… not so much because of the painting, more because of the clocking up a half-century thing.
*In the comments on Lizzie’s FaceBook feed, where she’s also posted the painting, so far I’ve been compared to Alexei Sayle, Alan Yentob and the Archbishop of Canterbury. I wasn’t actually aware I looked like any of these people. In response to the comments, Lizzie has replied ‘do you think Alexei Sayle, Alan Yentob or the Archbishop of Canterbury would like to buy the painting?’ We haven’t heard back yet from any of these gentleman on the subject, sadly.
P. D. Clifton 
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