The headline above a Guardian story about a 112-year-old Japanese octogenarian – the first person to pass 120 since records began – proclaimed: “They say he lived to be 168. Here’s how.”
When the teenager Guinness World Records say you have the world’s oldest living person, you must be disappointed to find out they aren’t actually the Guinness World Records people.
Well, 200 years of living doesn’t give you much of a second chance. You are down to the very last shining hour. But you can still get to 120.
Pretty soon, if you are well and truly living in a bubble, almost no one will remember you.
What an old-fashioned sense of humour we have. That headline sent a shiver down my spine. In fact, it was quite chilling.
We have achieved incredible longevity here in the UK. We have this grand old age-busting scheme called the NHS that has effectively kept people alive long enough to turn 112. I think this also has an effect on our societies. We tend to want to enjoy life.
To put it bluntly, when we reach the age where most of us will simply start spending our time playing computer games, I think we will lose our humanity.