Great Soul

Thanks for the good laugh I got from those puns you posted. The play on words with regards to Gandhi was superb! I looked him up in the wikipedia and he died at aged 78 in 1948, so rigorous fasting and a strict vegetarian diet never hurt him.

That got me looking at the average age of death and how that has varied over the years and various other death statistics. In England and Wales in 2001, 22 per cent of men who died did so in their own homes, while only 4 per cent died in communal establishments such as nursing homes (excluding hospitals and hospices), according to detailed mortality statistics published by the UK Office for National Statistics.

By contrast, only 16 per cent of female deaths occurred in the home and 11 per cent in nursing homes. This reflects women’s longer life expectancy, as they are more likely to be widowed and
be living in nursing or residential care homes for the elderly at the time of death.

In 2001 anyway, the average age at death was 73.2 years for males and 79.4 years for females. For those deaths due to land transport accidents the average age at death was 40.1 years for males and 49.1 for females. These 2001 statistics alone makes Gandhi's 78 in 1948 outstanding.

In fact, in Asia around 1948 the average lifespan turns out to be somewhere between 40 and 45.


Ever felt that you have lived too long? This lovely wikipedia article has all the gen.

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K's sister E just phoned. She is bored. She's one hour into sitting outside an Alcoholics Anonymous support meeting - it's a support meeting for those who are the partners of alcoholics. It's news to me (just now!) that A's Beau -- who incidentally has now dumped her I hear in favour of another female -- is an alcoholic. Do I care that my daughter was living in the same house as this person? K said to E on the phone, oh you shouldn't have said, mummy asked me not to tell daddy. I bet. I had heard that he lost his driving licence on a 1 year DWI ban. Poor girls, they need better female role models. I try my best.

Life is kind of like driving a car isn't it? It doesn't matter how careful you are someone can just crash right into you - I expect that Gandhi had people crashing into him all the time but he took it well, I mean, you don't get to live to 78 whilst all around you are dying at 50 without smiling a lot.