Tag Archives: longevity

I’m Gonna Live forEVAH!

Me and Freddie Mercury!

I do so luvvit when my little fondly-held prejudices and pet theories get supporting evidence. ‘Course when evidence goes against me I huff n puff, duck n dive.

Remember when drinking red wine made you live longer? And when just a little occasional mild exercise was best, and any more you did was a waste of time, maybe harmful? Those were the good old daze! That was good research!

Now, Good News! Fuck trying to live to a ripe old age! Read this and relax, and – as a bonus – save time n money!

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/17/morbid-by-saul-justin-newman-review-why-everything-you-think-you-know-about-longevity-is-wrong

Yay!

Summary for the lazy:

All that crap about special diets? Horseshit

Special areas where people live longer, like the Med or a Japanese island (“blue zones”)? Perdekak

110yr-old people who hit the news (“super-centenarians”)? – Most – 82% of them! – are dead, vrek, deceased, frot, mummified, buried. What IS happening is their families are still collecting their pensions. Never forget to factor in our human fondness of fibbing. (Remember Auntie Doris told you she was 39 for decades; and Uncle Horace told you he was 90 all through his eighties).

Others, still living, were born in the 1930s or 40s, not the 1900s. Never mind “the 19th century – they have lived in three millenia!” as they and their relatives tell the journalist eager / desperate for a story that will get more clicks than their last story about the village fete.

So instead of following devious Dan who built a lucrative brand around the trademarked term Blue Zones selling books, diets and lifestyles that promise the nine “secrets” of longevity; Or the fake China Study; Or tech-bro biohacking bullshitter Bryan who aims to defy death by infusing himself with his son’s plasma, injecting his penis with Botox and publicly tracking his bowel movements; Rather listen (as I do cos it suits me) to Jack London who said, I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them…

Also – and ignore this if you believe as Oscar Wilde did, that advice is only good in the giving: Do follow reproducible basic research by reputable institutions. Do value the scientific method. Spoiler: Both of these are usually boring, and sorry, but they will change over time (that’s science for you!).

In the meantime, don’t smoke, eat more plants and less meat, move more if you’re as lazy as me, move less if you’re an exercise bunny.

Or don’t.

Yay!

~~oo0oo~~

Perdekak – horseshit

vrek – dead; still collecting pension though

frot – not fresh

Annie’s Kings and Queens

(this blog is about happenings, disasters, surprises and chaos since I caught marriage and kids. But every now and then I re-post a story from my blissful, trouble-free, beer-fuelled bachelor days blog. Here’s one):

I joked that my gran Annie thought ‘the queen’ was also the queen of South Africa. Elizabeth Two, not Pieter-Dirk. And I thought ‘You know, Annie was probably alive ‘under’ Queen Victoria!’

So I thought I’d check.

Well, she certainly was. And what’s more, she actually ‘lived under’ six British Monarchs!

Smiling Vicky; Eddie Seven; Georgie Five; Eddie Eight; Georgie Six; Lizzie Two Second

How’s that! Long live the Queens! Long live the Kings! But longer live our Annie!

Annie in George - when? Dressed like Mrs Queen - and a corgi at her feet!!
– Annie 1893 – 1983 looking regal, complete with corgi and matching twinset –

~~oo0oo~~

I myself have lived through the (distant, irrelevant) reign of Lizzie Two Second and . . oh, only Lizzie. She recently de-throned or defrocked her great-great-granma Victoria as longest reigning Breetish monarch. Poor old Bakoor Charlie has gone straight from lifelong unemployment on the dole, straight into pensionerhood before ever actually doing anything. He’s seventy one in the shade, has never worked a day in his life and is still sitting around waiting for a vacancy to arise.

“Royalty” is such BullShit. If his mother keeled over millions would be wasted putting a hat on his head; after which he’ll carry on doing nothing while not wearing that stupid hat. We humans are incredibly stupid often.

– dreaming of his hat –

~~~oo0oo~~~

breetish – Mugabe-speak for that island to the left and north of France;

bakoor – wingnut – in ears and ideas;

Paddling Down Rivers

Looking at the Dusi results today I see the first finisher who, if I bumped into him, would say “Howzit Swanie or Howzit Pete” came in 93rd !!
Getting old! Gone are the days when I knew most of the top ten!

Another observation – 13 of the top 20 had African surnames. Wonder how the Anti-Affirmative-Action boys would explain that away?

I would bet good money if they (we!) were asked beforehand “What sports are black Africans likely to do well in if given a chance?” few would have suggested Dusi paddling!

sbonelo-khwela
Sbonelo Khwela came second

Talking of prescience, the first lady finisher came in 30th!! Shades of Frith vd Merwe finishing 15th in the 1989 Comrades!

abby-solms2
Abby Solms won (30th overall)

And we used to ban ladies from even doing the Dusi (“to protect them” – to protect ourselves from getting our arses whipped, it turns out!).

~~oo0oo~~

Yesterday a past Dusi and Umko winner phoned me about his eyes. I asked him if he was planning to do anything stupid in March.

He is. He is about to do his 51st consecutive Umko canoe marathon, the hardest of all the river marathons!

The reason? He has done 50 but he has only finished 49. He broke his boat back in 1970 and didn’t finish that one.

Fukkit!! So he wants to do his 50th finish.

He said to me “You should do it too, you know.” I said no ways, I’m too slow. He said “We paddle quite slowly these days you know.” He won the very first one in 1966.

I said Charlie, you don’t understand. My slow includes frequent stops, and a lot of resting on my paddle and checking the scenery. He understood then that I am slower even than him and other 70yr-olds. My slowness is much more in the brain than in the arms.