I'M LOSING the will to live. I mean really, some days you wonder if it's worth bothering. At 50, you must start looking after your back, making sure the spine remains supple. But bending down to the intellectual level of some people can be a real strain. Never mind, on we soldier, thinking maybe it'll get better in future. The idea arises that you can have your heid – can we say that in a quality paper? – pickled so that it can be jump-started many years hence.
Cryonics isn't the science of weeping but, rather, the idea that you can preserve folk at shiveringly low temperatures and defrost them in the future. Mr DJ Maclennan, 36, of Skye, is making £40-a-month insurance payments to cover the £40,000 cost of
having his brain bunged into a flask and frozen in the desert. For £70,000, you can have your whole body done, but I suppose that depends if you like the thing or not. Personally, I'd rather have a new one. One that does what it's telt. And DJ reckons they might be able to regenerate something for you.
Many of you will think this business queasy or sinister. The fear is that your brain comes alive in the future, but has to be permanently attached to machines, or housed in a Dalek-like structure. But Mr Maclennan has thought carefully about all this, and I like the cut of his jib. He's a Mac, has a beard and lives in a wonderful place. It might be handier if he lived nearer Phoenix, Arizona, right enough, since that's where they do the freezing.
I shall describe this process to you. Look away now if you're still alive. As soon as you die, trained operatives at your nearest cryonics centre fill your body with antifreeze before slinging it into an icy bath. Then, it's wrapped in polythene, submerged in alcohol – see, it isn't all bad – and lowered into a fibreglass box full of ice. Some time later, you're shaken or stirred awake and told you owe £40,000 in council tax.
Mind you, some cryonically perspicacious punters have invested their dosh so they can pick up a fine profit when defrosted many years hence, in a worldwide nuclear desert where the only remaining sign of commerce is a frazzled man by the roadside selling basketball-sized raspberries that glow like little suns.
Be that as it may. You've got to take the chance that, despite all contrary evidence, the human race will get better and your brain will wake to a new dawn. Of course, if humanity has improved, you might find yourself nicknamed Mr Thicky by the advanced humans, and have a lot of catching up to do. But they'll probably be able to download the information into your heid anyway.
DJ reckons we should treat ourselves with the same respect we accord computers. When we chuck out their ageing frames, we retain the stuff from the hard disc and transfer it into our new model. This is a persuasive argument, though I don't think we'd want to be too much like computers, or we'd be battering ourselves in the face out of sheer frustration.
I'd rather be like a child again, and wish I'd had my brain frozen at age seven or so, when I was happy, and hadn't grown up to learn how downright stupid the world is. Failing that, I'd like to be born again and write dull stuff masquerading as gravitas, starting my first paragraph as if in the middle of a conversation and blathering on lifelessly.
In the meantime, it's staying cheerful that keeps us going. Forty quid a month doesn't sound like much for eternal life. I spend more than that going to see Hibs. And that's taken years off me.
Want some ketchup on your mutant 99?HOW disturbing to see they're sticking sausages into 99s. A 99, for those of you brought up in prison, is an ice-cream cone with a Flake in it. Now, they're replacing the Flake with a sausage and – you won't believe this – the ice- cream with mashed potato. And adding peas and gravy. In these modern times, when every day seems like April Fool's, you sometimes have to poke yourself in the eye to make sure you haven't died and gone to some hell inhabited by practical jokers.
The report before me, dated 10 April, doesn't mention Scotland or deep-fried Mars bars (which, personally, I've never seen), so they can't hang this one on us. It seems to originate with a "traditional foods company" called Aunt Bessie's, and I remain convinced it must be an April Fool that's past its sell-by date. The company claims it came up with the idea in response to predictions that Britainshire is going to have a grim, wet summer and that, therefore, we will not be wanting ice- cream but might rather fancy warm comfort food. I am fond of sausages. I am fond of ice- cream. But a sausage in a cone? It's an outrage against public decency and is, therefore, bound to catch on.
Royals bring it flooding backTHE lieges are tittering at Prince Charles and his burd, Camilla, because they've spent their anniversary in Ballater, where the highlight of their celebrations was a visit to the recreated carriage of a steam train.
I fail to see what's so funny about this. Me and my gal once spent my birthday in a cabin in a Yorkshire forest, where a steam train ran through the valley below. We took the train to Whitby, where we had excellent fish and chips, then steamed back to the cabin to watch on telly the Champions League final, featuring my favourite English team, Liverpool. I was treated to cake and beer, and everything was going swimmingly, until Liverpool started losing and were three doon at half-time.
As the world now knows, the Reds recovered and went on to win on penalties, and I ran through the forest whooping and hollering. Best birthday I ever had. And if the Royal fox-manglers bettered that in Ballater, good luck to them.
The full article contains 1046 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
