A group for contestants and lovers of the Channel 4 game show 'Countdown'.
http://c4countdown.co.uk/
I think my performance in the university of life is not looking so rosy.
Sorry to hear that. Was it the Ghana/Uruguay handball/penalties brouhaha that did it?Marc Meakin wrote:Fuck, having just (last friday) had a heart attack at 47
Lol, no,just running for a late train, turned out my asthma attack turned out to be a heart attack caused but a congenital heart condition (Aortic Stenosis) that has taken 47 years to diagnose.Jon Corby wrote:Sorry to hear that. Was it the Ghana/Uruguay handball/penalties brouhaha that did it?Marc Meakin wrote:Fuck, having just (last friday) had a heart attack at 47
Precisely my feeling. 79's my target, so on Gavin's reckoning, I'm hoping for a third.JimBentley wrote:Depends on quality of life, though. I'm happy to live as long as I have full control of my faculties and that's about it. I wouldn't want to live to 90 if it means spending the last fifteen years of it shitting and pissing myself in some nursing home somewhere.
I think that with averages, people who die young probably skew things. I'd be interested to see the medians. But I wasn't really thinking in terms of averages, more about what I see as reasonable. When I hear of someone dying before 70, I tend to think that they haven't even reached proper old age, so it's definitely a fail. 70s I think of as too young to actually die. It's only when you reach your 80s that I think it becomes reasonable, and the figures I gave fit in quite well with my views on the various ages. Also while the average might be under 80, I think it's generally accepted that if you have a good diet and lifestyle, most people will easily exceed it.Michael Wallace wrote:Given that 2.i is the modal class (I think), and life expectancy (in the UK) is just under 80 years, it seems a bit odd to make the average a high third.
Unless you wanted to compare it with life expectancy of graduates, which is presumably a bit higher.
While I agree about quality of life, I think most people will go through a period of decline before they die and I'm not sure it's true that people who live longer have a longer period where they can't look after themselves. I think I've read stuff at some point on it, but basically, if you live to 100, the chances are you're going to have been fairly healthy at 90. So I don't see any particular advantage in picking an early age of death without knowing in advance how healthy you will be up to that point. So if I had to pick an age to die without knowing anything else, the higher the better!Howard Somerset wrote:Precisely my feeling. 79's my target, so on Gavin's reckoning, I'm hoping for a third.JimBentley wrote:Depends on quality of life, though. I'm happy to live as long as I have full control of my faculties and that's about it. I wouldn't want to live to 90 if it means spending the last fifteen years of it shitting and pissing myself in some nursing home somewhere.
It depends on which life table you use, but, in the UK:Gavin Chipper wrote:
I think that with averages, people who die young probably skew things. I'd be interested to see the medians. But I wasn't really thinking in terms of averages, more about what I see as reasonable. When I hear of someone dying before 70, I tend to think that they haven't even reached proper old age, so it's definitely a fail. 70s I think of as too young to actually die. It's only when you reach your 80s that I think it becomes reasonable, and the figures I gave fit in quite well with my views on the various ages. Also while the average might be under 80, I think it's generally accepted that if you have a good diet and lifestyle, most people will easily exceed it.
Certainly not all go through period of decline. Of my male blood relatives, there's only one I know of who's reached 80, and the two closest to me both died of a fatal heart attack having been fit and healthy right up of day of death. I've already passed my cousin (63), just got my father (79) in my sights, and that's my target.Gavin Chipper wrote:While I agree about quality of life, I think most people will go through a period of decline before they die and I'm not sure it's true that people who live longer have a longer period where they can't look after themselves. I think I've read stuff at some point on it, but basically, if you live to 100, the chances are you're going to have been fairly healthy at 90. So I don't see any particular advantage in picking an early age of death without knowing in advance how healthy you will be up to that point. So if I had to pick an age to die without knowing anything else, the higher the better!Howard Somerset wrote:Precisely my feeling. 79's my target, so on Gavin's reckoning, I'm hoping for a third.JimBentley wrote:Depends on quality of life, though. I'm happy to live as long as I have full control of my faculties and that's about it. I wouldn't want to live to 90 if it means spending the last fifteen years of it shitting and pissing myself in some nursing home somewhere.
Maybe this or, knowing your proclivities, this?JimBentley wrote:Slightly going off-topic (sorry Gavin), I remember something called "One Million People Alive Today Will Never Die" and thinking what a great title it was. Thing is, I can't remember what it was the title of. It might have been an album or a book or a story, but I really don't know what. Anyway, Google is totally not helping me and I wondered if anyone else had ever heard of it?
Haha cheers Charlie. It was the Tortoise album, but the 1925 pamphlet is interesting too. My Google skills are poor, though.Charlie Reams wrote:Maybe this or, knowing your proclivities, this?JimBentley wrote:Slightly going off-topic (sorry Gavin), I remember something called "One Million People Alive Today Will Never Die" and thinking what a great title it was. Thing is, I can't remember what it was the title of. It might have been an album or a book or a story, but I really don't know what. Anyway, Google is totally not helping me and I wondered if anyone else had ever heard of it?
I just searched for the words I thought you were most likely to have remembered exactly ("million today never die") and it was the first result. Clearly I have the Google-fu.JimBentley wrote:Haha cheers Charlie. It was the Tortoise album, but the 1925 pamphlet is interesting too. My Google skills are poor, though.Charlie Reams wrote:Maybe this or, knowing your proclivities, this?JimBentley wrote:Slightly going off-topic (sorry Gavin), I remember something called "One Million People Alive Today Will Never Die" and thinking what a great title it was. Thing is, I can't remember what it was the title of. It might have been an album or a book or a story, but I really don't know what. Anyway, Google is totally not helping me and I wondered if anyone else had ever heard of it?