I have no desire to live forever.

I can imagine it would be incredibly boring and I can't really imagine what purpose it would serve.  I have done most of the things I set out to do, so if I popped my clogs today I would consider I had done a reasonable job of this life and that it would be interesting to see what the next one has in store.  Anyway I have a funny feeling that my pension fund would probably dry up and I would have to go back to work.  Nah!  Sod that.

Those nice people who make a living out of "research" and who obviously care more about my longevity than I do have come up with a list of things which apparently are killing me, and that if I avoid them I will live forever.  Yes, they imply that death is preventable.

The list is surprisingly long.

Naturally they have to have a dig at smoking, but they can forget that.  I ain't quitting that now, out of sheer stubbornness, if for no other reason.  Anyway an eternal life without my pipe would not be pleasant.

Apparently unsafe sex is something to be avoided.  I suppose I could always tie them to the bed to stop them falling off?  And no more sex on parapets or while driving on motorways?  Difficult, but achievable, I suppose.

Booze and salt get an honourary mention too.  Fuck!  No more salt and vinegar on my chips after a feed of pints?  They can scrap that idea.  They'll be telling me next that I can't have sugar in my tea.  Woops – they have.  This is getting very bland.

Height and weight get a mention too, but they don't say in what context.  I do have a weight and I suppose I could get rid of it by going into permanent weightless orbit around the earth but that sounds a bit extreme?  The height one worries me though.  I am three dimensional and therefore have a height.  I can't for the life of me work out what I am supposed to do about that, except maybe put myself through a steel mill press until I am only two dimensional?  They don't say anything about width. 

I don't eat red meat.  I don't mind it when it's uncooked but I wouldn't eat it in that state – it would be too tough.  No.  I like my meat cooked until it is at least a sort of grey colour, and if I'm barbecuing it's likely to be rather black.  But never red.  I don't imagine many people eat red meat despite what the good researchers claim.

They mention malnutrition?  Well, if I followed their rules and avoided meat, salt, alcohol, sugar and all the other things they reckon are killing me then I imagine I would be suffering from malnutrition too.  They obviously haven't thought this one through.

There was one point that completely blindsided me.  They say [and I quote] "Nobody risks not changing the oil in their car, but nobody pays the same attention to their own body".  I have been around for a goodly number of years and I have never heard of this.  I'm darned sure my parents never mentioned it to me.  In all those years nobody ever told me that I had to change my oil.  Did you know about this?

There are seven billion people on this planet, so by the laws of pure chance a few people must be out there who never smoke, drink, take salt or sugar, drink clean water and never even look at red meat, yet they die too?  The only thing that it can possibly be is that they have a height?

The bottom line according to this "research" is that [and again I quote] "To put it in plain English, we are behaving badly".

What does "behaving badly" mean?  Does it mean we are enjoying ourselves?  Does it mean that despite having only one shot at life we mustn't make the most of it?  And who decides what is good or bad?  Are they saying that they have some godlike status and that we are being naughty little boys by not playing their game?

I have said it before and I'll say it again.

If I lived my life by their rules I possibly could live a little longer but eventually I will drop, because life is a fatal disease.

But it will have felt like I existed for eternity.