Saturday, February 03, 2007

Everlasting, like the sun

I've just watched "Do You Want To Live Forever", the documentary about Aubrey, and it was brilliant. I've heard and read about his theories at length before, but it's always a lot of fun to see him talking about them, with the beard and hair and a glass of beer on the go ("I have the genes that mean I like beer, and drinking it in the morning isn't a problem. I mean, it's ten in the morning, this is my third pint, and that's fine for me..."), and with a very convincing kind of passion for the subject. Jay Olshansky claimed in the documentary that Aubrey is full of bitterness and hate towards the scientific community, which is a wildly inaccurate thing to say - I've never known anyone less hateful, he does everything with a sense of just having fun with it.

Am I convinced by the arguments that we could eradicate the aging process with just a bit of work? Yes. Not from any kind of scientific understanding, but just because I like to believe we live in the kind of world where Aubrey's right. If I had money, I would gladly invest it in SENS research, or bump up the Methuselah Mouse prize fund, or whatever, and I hope it all comes to fruition, just so I can say I knew about it before it was cool. Even before meeting Aubrey, I generally approached life from the point of view that I was going to live forever, so it's quite nice to know I was right all along.

Meanwhile, I notice tonight that Amazon.co.uk seem to also have a different approach to time - they've just sent me an email saying:

"Dear Customer,

We wanted to give you an update on the status of your order
[026-4457344-7257252].

We are sorry to report that the following items have been delayed.

Antonia Forest (Author) "Falconer's Lure"

Our current estimate is that it will take an additional 4-6 weeks to
obtain these items for you.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this causes."


This, I might point out, is a book I ordered for a Christmas present for my mother, BEFORE Christmas, and this is the first I've heard that it hasn't been delivered yet. (Yes, if I spoke to my mother occasionally, I might have learned as much by now, but that's not the point.) I don't know, what is the world coming to?

Still, to look on the bright side, at least I didn't go to the football like I was thinking of doing yesterday. We got thrashed six-nil. At home. To Grimsby.

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