Some time between the ages of 40 and 50, you pass your life's halfway point. For those who believe in youth culture, who were part of the 90's rush that transformed Britain into an open-minded, hedonistic, artistic centre, this is more than a shock. It's unthinkable. Middle age is for someone else, whether that's Jeremy Clarkson or Victoria Wood.

And so, midlife crisis is a cliché that's changing. Instead of an open-top sports car, 40-somethings are buying top-of-the-range bikes. Rather than settling down into family life, mid-lifers are suddenly quitting their jobs, or running triathlons, or discovering the recreational joys of Ibiza. Anything to quash that nightmare thought: I've done this all wrong and it's too late to change.

What does this new midlife crisis mean, not only for their future, but for the future of the still-youth-obsessed UK? Award-winning Observer writer Miranda Sawyer takes a funny, insightful look at this tricky time of life, and sees that although some are equipped to sail (or jog) through this generational shift, others are struggling to cope as their youthful passions fail to survive the trials of full-blown adulthood.

Speaker biography:

Miranda Sawyer started her career at Smash Hits before moving on to Select Magazine where she won the PPA Magazine Writer of the Year Award in 1993, the youngest person ever to do so. In 2012, she won Record of the Day's Outstanding Contribution to Music Journalism award. Miranda is a presenter for BBC 2's The Culture Show, specialising in contemporary music, art and theater. A contracted feature writer for The Observer for almost twenty years, she is the paper's radio critic and writes regularly on pop culture. Her first book, Park and Ride, was published in 1999, and her new book, Out of Time, will be published this year.

---