I was heartened to read yesterday that years of painstaking research has drawn the conclusion that people are not now officially `old` until they have reached 75.   It went on to suggest that these days 75 is the new 65.   Well, suits me, as it means I have another three years to go before the dead hand of officialdom declares that I`m `old.`

Now I think in all fairness to what I am about to say  I must confess to `having my moments.`   They include such things as going upstairs for something but by the time I get up there I`ve forgotten what it was I came upstairs for.  I also have the problem of always forgetting a face but never remembering a name.   Even my own.

But whereas I might have reached the stage whereby I might be forgiven the odd mental lapse, the thing that is truly worrying is when you find evidence of `losing it` in those who are not only considerably younger but also expected to be a bit sharper than your average `senior.`  And today there has been a sad example of someone in the public eye to whom that concern applies.

I refer to our old friend `Sir` Alexander Chapman Ferguson, CBE, manager of Manchester United, who has now given his verdict on the recent red card dismissal of his £200,000 a week superstar Wayne Rooney.    "He's shown tremendous improvement in terms of his temperament, his reactions to being tackled and things like that over the last few years. As maturity comes along, then it brings other things. It brings the responsibility, which he is improving all the time."

Quite so.   So, if Rooney`s petulant reaction in kicking a Montenegro defender up in the air, being dismissed and possibly banned for as many as three matches in next year`s European Cup Finals, is an example of his `tremendous improvement,` then I can only conclude  that, sadly, Ferguson is once again showing  signs of `losing it.`  It would be a fitting conclusion - and not before time - if, like his predecessor Sir Matt Busby, he were to be elevated to the directorship upstairs.  Provided, of course, that he knows why he is there when he gets there.