Look at Bruce Willis. Or should I say John McClane? Look at that poor fool, he just keeps on living. They're making him do another Die Hard film. A sixth Die Hard film. What the fuck is that about? If John McClane were a real person and he read the Guardian, I'm sure he would have read with some interest the article with which I became disgruntled earlier on today. Ten ways to live longer... He would have asked, at least in my mind he would have asked, where is the companion piece, 'Ten ways to die?'
But I'll come back to that train of thought later on. Firstly, what pissed me off so much about the original piece? Was it how eye-meltingly obvious many of the points were? No. That was to be expected. It was actually how monumentally offensive the overall tone of the piece ended up being. Basically, and I'm summarising here, if you want to live to a grand old age first of all don't live in Britain. Don't have had the misfortune to have been born here and if you did, at least have had the benefit of being raised elsewhere. If you do insist upon being British and living your paltry life here, don't live outside London. Don't smoke, don't drink, don't eat fatty food. Exercise. Etc. Etc. Also don't be stressed. Don't be stressed about the fact that you work too hard in a job that pays peanuts, or worse, that you're currently unemployed at perhaps the worst moment to be so in living memory.
Don't live in the North. Don't be from the North. Exercise. Eat nuts and seeds. Eat nuts and seeds like a bird. You fucking bird. You unemployed London bird. You fucking pigeon. Move to Japan. It's fucking great in Japan. Everyone's old. And happy, everyone's happy in Japan. And Spain. Fucking Spain. It's great, they have olive oil and tapas and it's sunny and people sleep during the day. Go to Spain. Fuck off to Spain. Who is this advice even for? What was the point? Why waste that paper on this crap. Maybe it will be ironically used to wrap up a fish supper.
There exists a tiny number of people who are not already either following all of that advice and, consequently, do not need it, or are too far gone down the road of being Northern or eating chips, drinking beer and smoking fags. They exist. Honest. But they're probably too busy having opportunities to stop and read some guff in the Guardian. So, I conclude, it was for me. It was a warning. I need to stop and think about how I'm living my life. I need to quit smoking and do more exercise. I need to eat less fatty food and eat more nuts and seeds. I need to move to Japan. Or Spain. Or London. Either way, I need to move South. I need to run to the train station and get on any train going South and not get off until I'm living ten years longer.
Oh fuck. Oh fucking hell. Wait a minute here. If I'm going to live ten years longer, I'm going to have to start planning for my retirement. Or am I? If this was twenty years ago, forty years ago, whatever, and I was planning to live to 70+, I would need to plan for my retirement. But this is now, and I'm probably going to have to work until I die, even if I live to 70. So what is the fucking point? The only good thing about living longer is the possibility of taking it easy, moving to the country, enjoying grandchildren occasionally coming to visit in the Summer holidays. But I won't have that. I'll be in a cubicle, nine to five, trying to do data entry with arthritis. Trying to remember the name of my boss who's thirty years younger than me. Trying to remember where it all went wrong.
You know where it all went wrong? I gave up smoking. I ate healthier even though it made me a twat. I exercised even though everyone looks stupid when they exercise. I even moved to Japan for a while, but had to leave because everyone was speaking Japanese. I lived in Spain, but had to leave because it's shit. It's nice for a holiday, but overall, it's shit. Tapas is shit. It's too hot and it's just shit. So I moved to London. You know what happens in London? Industrialised misery. Twelve million of the angriest twats you'll ever meet all crammed into a space that most dormice would find a bit too cosy. And they're all competing with eachother for housing, jobs, food, mates. It's like living in a really badly thought out zoo.
So I ended up back in Britain. Back up North. Working til I die. I have no friends because I had to give up everything that made me a likeable human being. I became an absolute ball-acheing twat and for what? The joy of working an extra few years in some (literally) dead-end job. Fuck you Guardian. I'll take my fags and my beer and my food. I'll enjoy the years I actually have. I'm not going to mortgage the best years of my life so that the worst years can last a bit longer.
