Growing old: Theodore Dalrymple
Theodore Dalrymple: ‘I feel I’ll go on for ever’
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The past was far worse, statistically, than the present. When I was born the infant mortality rate was 12 times what it is now. I have already exceeded my life expectancy at birth by 10 years,
Doctor Johnson said that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather. When two people in their mid-seventies meet, their first talk is of arthritis. I have now passed the age at which Dr Johnson, who was then regarded as very old, died, and I feel slightly guilty about it, as I do about anyone who died younger than me through no fault of theirs or merit of mine. Chance is unjust.
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