Goldies - glamorous oldies - and Silver Surfers have never had it so good - Telegraph Why wouldn't he? It can sometimes feel that the world views us over-60s differently. At 59 you can be considered sharp, smart and a valuable contributor to society, but tip over this age and suddenly you are lumped together with all the other oldies as dithery, doddery and scared to open the front door. We must find a new way to describe this babyboomer generation. "Elderly" is the worst adjective. It is used for anyone over 65, but it is ugly, dowdy and implies incapacity. News reports have described "elderly" people chasing and catching muggers and confronting and reprimanding rioters. Why "elderly" - why not just "brave" people? Oh, and please, can we ditch the word "silver" as a catch-all description of those of us in our seventh decade? I gritted my teeth when I read that Esther Rantzen was starting a helpline for mistreated oldies called Silverline. Isn't that a railway network? And besides, forget grey and silver, many of us are actually going blonde, brunette or redhead - and lead seriously colourful lives to match. So why, when the BBC airs stories about "older" people, are they accompanied by footage of age-spotted hands, clutching a zimmer frame, or a confused, lumpen group attempting line dancing, at snail's pace. Have they never been to my Zumba class? Now, I accept that good health is an essential ingredient to enjoying life as you get older. But having gone for the burn with Jane Fonda, jogged and yoga-ed our way through the past 20 years, stubbed out cigarettes and munched on muesli, this has got to be the fittest older generation ever. I cannot see my noisy, opinionated, confident contemporaries disappearing into care homes, dependence, isolation any time soon. In fact, my friends and I are pooling our resources to buy the House of The Sinking Sun, as we call it - a big house where we can all live, with a nurse and housekeeper, when the time comes. Our generation has changed the world - from music and sex to health and equal rights - and now we're going to change attitudes to ageing. Bullied by the Government who insists we sell our bigger houses and work until we drop, and with no chance of being looked after by the state in our extreme old age - unless we pay for it, of course - we're not so much raging against the dying of the light, as rampaging against the patronising view that we're past it. As a comedy writer I believe the way to challenge any misconception is by humour. The Americans anticipated that over 25 years ago, with the magnificent comedy The Golden Girls. Four Miami matrons shared a house. Their stories and dramas were the same as any age group - dating, personal space, personality clashes - with the additional acknowledgment of the effects of old age. Remember raspy-voiced Dorothy advising flighty Blanche to look down onto a mirror? When Blanche recoiled at her wrinkled image, Dorothy observed: "That's what you'll look like from below. So don't go on top. I'm not the only one who wants choice and dignity for her future. The novelist Deborah Moggach's book These Foolish Things has just been filmed as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel , in which a group of strangers, beguiled by an online advertisement, move into an Indian palace to live out their lives in comfort and freedom. The Goldies - glamorous oldies - in the film include Dame Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and Celia Imrie. They have been talking publicly, and critically, about our country's lack of care for older people. Other Goldies, such as Dame Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley, have also spoken out. Yes, they may be famous, but there are millions like them among us - still working, still fit and still looking great. Indeed, gold is more valuable than silver: it increases in value with age and is highly desirable . That's certainly true of Bill Nighy. I wonder if he's on a dating website?