How lucky we all are! Average lifespans are going up all the time and before long there'll be centenarians galore, not to mention armies of ninety-year-olds.But do we really want to live to 100? Do we really want to live so long we can hardly remember what we did for a living or who we once shacked up with, let alone our first love or our teenage rampages?
Why is length of life considered so much more important than quality of life? What's the point of reaching 101 if by that time you're half-blind, deaf, senile and stuck in a wheelchair?
Personally I'd prefer dropping dead at (say) 70, still in good health, mentally alert and savouring life to the full, to staggering on for another thirty years becoming more and more decrepit and an increasing burden to everyone else.
In fact I'd like to keel over in the middle of something I particularly enjoy like climbing Slieve Donard*, scoffing a huge bowl of ice cream or exploring some foreign city.
I certainly don't want to end up in a so-called care home, where the chances are instead of being cared for I'd be treated with casual indifference by underpaid, uncommitted staff.
No, I'm happy to stay alive as long as I'm firing on all cylinders and my brain is still fizzing with all the spectacle and novelty of the world around me.
Once the fun disappears and my body starts falling apart, I hope someone will do the decent thing and pop something nasty in my morning coffee to save me from a miserable fadeout.
Frankly I want to go out with a bang and not a whimper. And with my dignity still intact.
* Highest mountain in Northern Ireland, one of the Mourne Mountains.
