The Senior Moment - A cold hearted society

Wednesday, 16 November 2011

Imagine 200 elderly people dying from the cold every day. That stark statistic is not part of an appeal for aid from some distant, impoverished country. Nor does it come from the pages of a dickens novel. It is the fate awaiting our own, abandoned elderly over the next few months, right here, in Britain.

Britain, where we throw away a third of the food we buy – yet still face an obesity crisis. Britain, where we squander £1.4 billion a year on gambling and spend more on alcohol than we do on fruit. Surely, we have the resources to stop this seasonal tragedy? Two hundred deaths a day. Until this appalling situation is consigned to history we should, none of us, sleep easy in our warm bed at night.

So, a new wonder drug will enable us to live to the extremely ripe old age of 150. However appealing this may sound, the prospect raises some serious questions: how can we possibly care for the vastly increased population? Where will we house everyone? 

What effect will such longevity have on the jobs market? It also raises some equally perplexing, although perhaps less grave issues: where to buy happy 150th birthday cards? How to get through all those extra years of repeats on the BBC? And how will we ever afford 300 Christmas presents for children down to great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren?

We’ll have to start saving on our honeymoons. Perhaps the most important question, though, is easily overlooked in our haste to extend life: what really matters -- how long we live, or how much? Is a book on questions a good idea?

On questions, if it hasn’t been done already, I’m thinking of writing a book about the posers grandchildren come up with. If I get cracking, it would make good stocking filler (and that, I promise, is the only reference to Christmas in this issue).

For example, a friend of mine was stumped when her grandson enquired: “grandma, if you were a dog, what would you prefer to eat, Pedigree Chum or Winalot?” grandma didn’t know quite where to begin. Nor did the grandfather who, while on bed time reading duty, was asked: “Why don’t the bees ever sting Winnie the Pooh?” my favourite though: on learning that her grandparents were taking a break in Devon, young Bella chirped up: “Why do goldfish go there?” “goldfish?” “Yes, mum said that my goldfish had died and gone to Devon.” 

Have a great month and look out for an extra special issue in December – our twentieth anniversary.