GERALDINE they're moaning again.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We don't like it. I'll send you one of maniac doing Greek dancing in a taverna to use instead!

It's probably the Editor's mum...

Actually, I like the picture. She is looking at a map. Maps encourage peering.

I also like the picture of you that you posted, jings

[Bags bloody troublemaker emoticon]

Afraid not! I'll put it on my profile though. You'll have to ask her permission to use it!

Can't find it on iPad. Look at lap top tomorrow evening.

this is me bags

I never suggested it was Geraldine!!!!

I expect Ana meant the Telegraph's editor. Not GN's!

Yes - who said otherwise?

I dunno.

Can we pass on our wrath to the Telegraph and get them to re-run the story with a more representative picture??? (She says, not really thinking that's going to happen!)
Suffice to say, us GNLocal editors were not impressed and some of us have been twittering away about it today when we really should have been focussing more on our listings on our sites so that we look really impressive for the big launch tomorrow
Actually ... that's why I'm still working so late at night! All the fault of The Telegraph!

Well, I hope I look that good at her age!

Aren't we being just as prejudiced? It's just a picture of an old woman. Put there to focus readers' minds on the fact that this article is about grans. It does the job.

Of course all grans don't look like that, but any picture they chose could hardly be representative. I bet if we looked at pictures of grans and wanted to choose a representative one, we'd have a hard job. You can't portray and age-group from about thirty-six to eighty-six or more with one picture!

I think it's just as ageist not to want to look old as it is to focus on age when talking about grans.

Though age does come into it!

an age-group

We live in a culture obsessed with youth, and we are just as guilty as the people we criticise.

Do we know what age the woman in the photograph is? She might be 30 but a heavy smoker for all I know. However, I wouldn't mind betting that the picture editor or sub – whoever chose it – doesn't have children so was thinking in terms of his or her own granny who would, obviously, be older than his or her mum who would be a granny if he/she had children. If you see what I mean.

She is not thirty. Don,t be silly.

I like being silly.

Look, I did n' t start the first thread on this to CRITICISE the woman in the picture. I think she looks fine. I probably look older than her at the moment.

Bags has got a very good point.

And to refer to anyone of our age as an "old hag" is beyond the pale, whether it is any member of Joe public doing it, it or the editor of Gransnet.

Sorry. "Ancient crone" . The posh version of old hag

OK, absnet, carry on.

What is wrong with looking old? Why are we so afraid of it? What is wrong, indeed, of being old?

Most of us are extremely prejudiced about this and fight against it in what are, in my view, quite superficial ways that achieve precisely zilch. That's the real problem.

When we stop minding being portrayed as old – because there's nothing wrong with being old – we'll have ditched our prejudices and our fears. Not before.