A flight of fantasy or There are never enough hours in the day

It was just the other day that the death was reported of one of the last four of the veterans of the first world war hitherto surviving. He was 108. His three remaining comrades in arms are aged between 107 and 112. And these are men, and men do not usually live for as long as women. In fact currently, there are 7 times as many female centenarians in Britain as men. Now attaining the age of 100 does not rival Methuselah, but it is nonetheless far beyond the Psalmist's three score years and ten. And becoming a centenarian is on the increase. In 2007, there were 9,300 centenarians in the UK as compared to about 100 in 1900. Bearing in mind that those now aged 100 or more were born around 1900, then it is clear that, with all the medical advances we have seen since then, we can look forward to vastly increasing numbers. In the last 40 years, the number of centenarians has increased tenfold and so it seems reasonable to assume that in 40 years time that figure will reach at least 90,000. For years, ever since as a young lawyer I consulted my first copy of the actuarial tables, I have been telling people that the longer they live, the greater the age they can expect ultimately to live to. This takes a while to sink in, but I generally find that their eyes un-glaze when I point out that three score and ten, or perhaps three score and fifteen now, is the average innings for all just-born babies. It takes into account the risks we will encounter during our lives from illness or dangerous sports like, well like any kind of sport really. But if, having got to, say, 50, we've managed to avoid them, and being alive is a good indicator of that, then that increases the likelihood of our living to a reasonably ripe old age. Of course the actual life expectancy at birth varies from person to person, not only because of the amount of danger we expose ourselves to, but it is also influenced by where you are born and who you are born to. This is clearly unfair. I therefore intend to write to Brussels to suggest a new European Directive. It would provide for the Standard European Life Expectancy and would fix it at 75 years. Does a fixed life span mean that I am in favour of euthanasia for everyone once they have reached the end of their Euro life-span? Well, it could be an answer in a world with an ever-increasing population, but no. Quite obviously though, if in reality we have the actual life-span which nature has bestowed upon us, but are deemed to have a lifetime lasting only 75 years, then something has to change. That something would be the length of the year. We would each therefore have a personalised variable length year. The older we got, the longer our variable year - to be called the Euroyear™ - would have to be in order to accommodate our increased life expectancy. Now this is not a wind up. Alright, it is a wind up, but think of the benefits it could give us. At the age of 50, my life expectancy was actually 84 years. That means that, on average, each of my Euroyears™ was 84/75ths of a calendar year or 409 days. At my present age, the age at which the tables anticipate that I will fall off my twig has increased to 87 years. My Euroyear™ would therefore have increased by 14 days so that now it is 423 days long. Allowing as well for the previous years when my Euroyear™ was underestimated because I hadn't then lived long enough to demonstrate my longevity and you have an almost exponential increase in length for my Euroyear™. Now, apart from the creation of Eurojobs, where's the benefit? Well, as they get older, everyone complains that time rushes by faster and faster. With my proposal this would all stop. Instead, as we got older the years would get longer rather than shorter. As an alternative, you could have the choice of this extra time being reflected in a longer week - currently my Euroweek™ would stand at 8 earth days, a possible disadvantage if I still worked, but no problem now that I am retired. Or at last we could have that thing which everybody wants - more hours in the day: an extra 4 for me to be exact. It's amazing what a lawyer's training can do for you.

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