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The curse of Britain’s oldest person has struck again. 114 year old Ethel Lang, the last Victorian has fallen victim to the grim reaper, a mere 14 months after winning the title. I see from that BBC article that Ethel has been blind since she was 85, but enjoyed listening to the snooker - I wonder. I have a feeling that there might be some kind of audio snooker based tribute to this remarkable woman very soon. RIP Ethel.
I don’t want to say I told you,
but I totally called it. When, oh when, will the government step in to protect the holder of this prestigious position. Gladys Hooper must be shitting herself. But that’s just one of the downsides of living till you’re 111. What a poor showing from 1902 that none of their British babies have lived this long. But as a relatively young oldest UK citizen Gladys does have the potential to hold the title for a good three years and if she can break the curse by going on that long then the sky is the limit.
If you’re seen Lord of the Dance Settee (
and if not then there are plenty more opportunities), then you’ll know that I have used that Metro article as the basis of one of the routines and my first thought was, rather selfishly, “oh, great, now I need to rethink the first part of thatâ€. In the grand scheme of things it’s not that difficult to chante that and on the plus side (of an old lady’s death) it will make the routine seem ultra-topical in Northampton on Monday. Like the Nelson Mandela/Prince Phillip bit from “We’re All Going To Die!†it’s actually more remarkable that I’ve been able to do the routine in its current form for so long. Even more remarkable is that 14 months on the statistic of there being
only 5 people still alive from the 1800s still holds good. My own hopes of becoming the oldest person in the world are dented by the fact that only 2 of the 60 oldest people in the world are men (what do you make of that femiNazis?).
Prince Phillip, who according to conspiracy theorists stays alive by drinking the blood of young women that he has executed in car crashes, still laughs in the face of my 2013 joke and refuses to die. But the Queen must have a pretty good shot at becoming the oldest person in the country (and what a laugh it is going to be when she has to send a telegram to herself). It’s almost like being super-rich and having doctors on hand to care just for you gives you some kind of advantage. So well done to those non-royal women with proper Victorian names like Ethel and Gladys (and my own grandma Doris) for living so long.
Each year that passes, things move from being within living memory to being history. It’d be interesting to know what the oldest memory on earth is, both personally and historically. What’s the oldest item of news that anyone remembers? Queen Victoria is now, I presume, an entirely historical character, though it’s possible that one of those 1800s five will recall her death.
The story of the human race is a long one and they keep changing the cast. Out of all the people who lived in the 1800s only five are still standing (and I bet none of them are doing much standing). How long until all of us are nothing but memory and then not even memories? Enjoy this while you can. We are but puffs of imagination that will disappear in the morning rain.
