Leave Biden alone – at his age I was working full-time, swimming three times a week and had five girlfriends

I do feel sorry for poor old Joe. His Covid sounds pretty serious. I had it too, or so I was told after surgery. But I never knew for sure,I felt nothing. No illness at all. So, lucky me, but getting to 80 and beyond is a matter of luck, as we all know.

I don’t understand all this fuss about Joe Biden’s age. Just because he is 81 and three-quarters, it doesn’t mean that he’s necessarily unfit for office. Unfit for running up Helvellyn perhaps, or swimming the Channel, or swinging from the chandeliers in the bedroom maybe, but, as he said in a recent interview, unless he is diagnosed with a “medical condition” by a doctor, he sees himself as perfectly capable of running for president.

And why not, if he can take important decisions, hold meetings and stand on platforms for hours making speeches? I am sure he can still do joined-up writing and sign his name too.

I am 88 and when I was his age, I was still working full-time, as I am now. Oh yes, and swimming three times a week and walking three miles on the Heath every day. At 82, I also had five girlfriends. Honest. In one week, I took each to lunch at my local Bistro. You should have seen the eye-rolling from the waitresses.

My wife, the writer Margaret Forster, died eight years ago after 55 years of marriage, and for a year I was so busy with probate, selling our much-loved Lakeland home, and mourning, that I didn’t have time to think about having a lady friend.

Then one of my daughters, as a Christmas present, bought me a subscription to Saga dating. I could not quite work out how to do it at first. My fingers are stiff and I find the internet a nightmare. I am sure Joe has the same problem, although he has a large staff to twiddle the knobs. Then I got going and,