None of us like to think of ourselves as over the hill. Fuddy-Duddies. Dinosaurs, if you like. Hip Young Things once, HYTs forever, right? But there is a transition period, and once started, it's a downward spiral.

It's a bit like the first time a shopkeeper called me a "woman" - as in "I'll just let this woman go now." It was a real shock to me - a blow to the self-confidence. (I was only 23 and a slip of a girl in my own mind!) It had more associations with support tights and stretch marks and sagging assets for me, rather than wisdom and earthiness and maturity.

So what are the signs of impending lack of coolness? Musical tastes are the first to kick in. Now, realistically, how many over-30s can say with hand on heart that they enjoy Puff Daddy rapping on about whatever he raps on about. Or Fatboy Slim pushing old records around on a turntable. Utter that phrase "But that's not real music" and you're your mother's daughter all right.

Clothes, of course, figure a close second. Even if you prize yourself on your fashion sense, ask yourself if the shops you prefer have changed over the past few years. Do you tend to bypass Oasis and Japan as you head for Next nowadays? Unless you have a taste for bellytops and size 8 pedal-pushers, I'll bet you do.

But children have to be the final stumbling block on the slippery slope towards total lack of savvy. Phrases like "That is sooo hick!" and "Oh please!" repeated often enough hit home eventually. My own Road to Damascus involved a discussion of a hot new musical talent in our area that my son was "into". I made not one but two fatal flaws in the one sentence in the battle to appear trendy: I enquired innocently when this band was launching their new record.

Groans and eye-rolling from my pre-teen as I proved once more I was reared in pre-history. Have you figured it out yet, or are you too one of the "Uncool"?