Living on borrowed time

Well, according to a website that I visited yesterday, I am living on borrowed time, and should really be dead.

I am 48. I smoke, despite the fact that my boozing days are behind me, I still drink alcohol on average more than once a week, I am at least five stone overweight, and I have a history of recreational drug abuse. I should, apparently, be dead.

Yesterday, when I read this edifying and uplifting snippet of information, I was in the third day of the worst cold that I have had for ages, and was quite prepared to believe that my death was imminent.

Today, I am not so sure.

Not only is my tiresome virus in retreat, but the sun is shining, issue 34 of Animals & Men is being enveloped up as we speak, my blasted book is finished, and just awaiting a foreword from Biffo, I managed to finish episode seven of `On the Track` in the wee small hours, we have just posted out the first trenche of sponsorship request packs, and Graham is just about to start painting the outside of the museum. Jon's in his office, and all is reasonably right with the world.

But it gets me thinking about mortality, or more particularly, about current thinking on the subject.

My mother drank reasonably regularly, but never smoked a day in her life. She died of lung cancer aged 79. My grandmother smoked like a chimney, and drank like a fish for years, and died aged 85 of an illness completely unrelated to either of her habits. My father is one of the only two men I have ever met who could drink both me and Graham under the table, (Tony Shiels is the other) and was merrily mixing sherry and morphine together every lunchtime until a fortnight before his death aged 81.

A fellow traveller in the cryptozoological rat race died a few weeks ago aged a few years younger than me, and as far as I am aware, he was teetotal.

I'm not quite sure what point I am trying to make here, or, indeed, if I am actually trying to make one at all. It was quite a shock to read that my race should, statistically at least, already be run, but in the cold grey light of dawn, or rather in the bright, brisk sunlight of April Fool's Day in sunny north Devon, it does not seem anywhere near as frightening a prospect as it did yesterday.

My life has carried a government health warning for years. I have achieved a fair amount, but only scratched the surface of what I intend to achieve. My father refused to die until he finished his magnum opus on the history of modern Africa. I intend to follow in his footsteps, light another cigarette, and tell the grim reaper to sod off until I'm ready for him.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the website I found was only in April Fool's prank from my doctor, anyway. Everybody knows that fags, and the occasional slug of brandy in your coffee are actively good for you!