Shameful death

[Octavius]

According to research carried out by some dim spark at the University of Bath, one in five people are set to die a 'shameful death'.

Sociology expert (who just so happens to have written a book recently) Allan something-or-other, reports a bleak portrait of death in the 21st Century and "argues" that medical advances are enabling us to live longer but society is at a loss with how to treat this large ageing population.

He said: 'Most people think only fleetingly about how they will die. Usually it surrounds some romantic notion of dying in our sleep at home. This could not be further from the truth. We are significantly more likely to die a prolonged painful death in a nursing home or in a hospital, preceded by multiple organ failure, pneumonia or dementia. As we live longer there is every chance that we will outlive friends and relatives who have traditionally seen us through our last years'.

Now personally I can't understand why we would live longer but everyone else around us wouldn't, nor why such a death would be 'shameful', but hey ho. Do you think this goon has a point? Or is the cheerless doomsayer predicting his own friendless future with the sanctimonious twitterings of a lonely melancholic mind?

I bet he has no friends in Bath.

[Champagne]

I think he has a valid point. I often dream of dying peacefully in my sleep, but I know for my sins that I'm more likely to die face down in a pool of my own vomit in a seedy side alley in London.

I'll be lucky if I'm clothed.