Thanks Sean, got my day off to a great start you have.
I fit the first 10 to a tee so thank the Lord there’s no number 11.
Now just where did I put the sodding Paracetamol? Is it hot in here or what? Too tired to mow today and the stomach’s feeling a tad iffy. Think I’ll watch tennis instead. If I do though…
Well, like the Irishman in the punch cartoon of 1900 or something, er….
PADDY (to Irishman leaning on gate); “To be sure Paddy, it’s March and you’re lookin’ goodly well, so you are, begorrah…”
IRISHMAN (leaning on gate); “Ar, well, you see Paddy old fella, whenever I notice that I don’t die in March, I find that I don’t die at all that year”.
Sean, you are a valitudinarian. Just be thankful for the life you already have had, you are already nearly 101 years old – 700 if you were a cat (now there’s an idea for a novel…) – amd quit worrying about this or that. It’s just normal battle-damage.
100,000 or more years ago – and horribly, even more recently if Ian B is right in his sources – you might have expected to live about 14-18 years as a male hominid, although you wouldn’t know what 14 or 15 meant. You’d only know that time had passed, if you “found yourself to be sexually mature” – and you’d have no concept of that as a state either; you’d just “er….mmmmm…Grrrrr” whne you saw another male hominid near one of your group’s females. You’d have had three or four “juveniles” by the age of eleven/twelve. You might have made it to 30 or 35, by being bigger and more aggressive towards the males of the “nearby group” of “Grrrrrs” that lived about a mile or more away. You’d have been able to go with the posse of your sons – at least twelve or fifteen of the buggers – and grab the pubescent and breeding females of that outfit while slaying and eating the resisting males. Your teeth would begin to agonize you and fall out followed by bleeding infectious pus, at about 28-30. You’d have dies probably of septicaemia.
Then, migrating for food, we’d just…well…leave you. You couldn’t be carried while moaning and groaning, being too heavy. You couldn’t eat or even be fed, being insensible with jaw-pain. You’d have had at least 20 male children and about the same of your begotten females, whom your four or five surviving sons would have to guard against your next avatar coming soon, or else they’d have nobody to shag either to make more children.
You’d be, simply, left. You’d contemplate – if that was something your brain could do at all – your impending death. You’d know death, so you might even have had a premonition of yours coming. For you’d dealt death freely with sharp rocks and clubs to the nearby tribal group, for getting their women and animals. You were in insensible pain from your suppurating teeth and gums, so you probably wouldn’t care very deeply, being left.
Later on, 40,000-50,000 years BC, we might “leave you some food”. Then, in the fullness of time, a -Giant Short-Arsed-Bear- would find you and inexpertly butcher you while you yet lived, with its jaws and claws. This is one reason why we don’t find many hominid fossils.
I’m doing two things here, old man. Firstly, offering you material for another historical novel (a challenging historical period, I do agree) and also trying to focus your attention on how fortunate you really are! (You know that for you wrote about it somewhere else…)
Since I have, for the time being, given up believing I have autism, dyslexia or Asperger’s Syndrome, and my doctor is still laughing at the “testicular cancer” I took him a few years ago, I need to worry about something. Hearts can go pop at any moment. Or I might have a stroke. I got up the other morning with a headache.
Thanks Sean, got my day off to a great start you have.
I fit the first 10 to a tee so thank the Lord there’s no number 11.
Now just where did I put the sodding Paracetamol? Is it hot in here or what? Too tired to mow today and the stomach’s feeling a tad iffy. Think I’ll watch tennis instead. If I do though…
I’ve had all the symptoms since I was twelve. I carry aspirin in my bag, just in case.
Well, like the Irishman in the punch cartoon of 1900 or something, er….
PADDY (to Irishman leaning on gate); “To be sure Paddy, it’s March and you’re lookin’ goodly well, so you are, begorrah…”
IRISHMAN (leaning on gate); “Ar, well, you see Paddy old fella, whenever I notice that I don’t die in March, I find that I don’t die at all that year”.
Sean, you are a valitudinarian. Just be thankful for the life you already have had, you are already nearly 101 years old – 700 if you were a cat (now there’s an idea for a novel…) – amd quit worrying about this or that. It’s just normal battle-damage.
100,000 or more years ago – and horribly, even more recently if Ian B is right in his sources – you might have expected to live about 14-18 years as a male hominid, although you wouldn’t know what 14 or 15 meant. You’d only know that time had passed, if you “found yourself to be sexually mature” – and you’d have no concept of that as a state either; you’d just “er….mmmmm…Grrrrr” whne you saw another male hominid near one of your group’s females. You’d have had three or four “juveniles” by the age of eleven/twelve. You might have made it to 30 or 35, by being bigger and more aggressive towards the males of the “nearby group” of “Grrrrrs” that lived about a mile or more away. You’d have been able to go with the posse of your sons – at least twelve or fifteen of the buggers – and grab the pubescent and breeding females of that outfit while slaying and eating the resisting males. Your teeth would begin to agonize you and fall out followed by bleeding infectious pus, at about 28-30. You’d have dies probably of septicaemia.
Then, migrating for food, we’d just…well…leave you. You couldn’t be carried while moaning and groaning, being too heavy. You couldn’t eat or even be fed, being insensible with jaw-pain. You’d have had at least 20 male children and about the same of your begotten females, whom your four or five surviving sons would have to guard against your next avatar coming soon, or else they’d have nobody to shag either to make more children.
You’d be, simply, left. You’d contemplate – if that was something your brain could do at all – your impending death. You’d know death, so you might even have had a premonition of yours coming. For you’d dealt death freely with sharp rocks and clubs to the nearby tribal group, for getting their women and animals. You were in insensible pain from your suppurating teeth and gums, so you probably wouldn’t care very deeply, being left.
Later on, 40,000-50,000 years BC, we might “leave you some food”. Then, in the fullness of time, a -Giant Short-Arsed-Bear- would find you and inexpertly butcher you while you yet lived, with its jaws and claws. This is one reason why we don’t find many hominid fossils.
I’m doing two things here, old man. Firstly, offering you material for another historical novel (a challenging historical period, I do agree) and also trying to focus your attention on how fortunate you really are! (You know that for you wrote about it somewhere else…)
Thanks, but I’ll keep carrying the emergency aspirin with me, just in case.
Since I have, for the time being, given up believing I have autism, dyslexia or Asperger’s Syndrome, and my doctor is still laughing at the “testicular cancer” I took him a few years ago, I need to worry about something. Hearts can go pop at any moment. Or I might have a stroke. I got up the other morning with a headache.