draliman on life

The answer to the Ultimate Question. And my age.

Forty-two. According to the late great Douglas Adams in his amazing “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, this is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

It’s also my age, as from today (Happy Birthday to me)!  As my age is now the answer to the Ultimate Question, I’m expecting great things from the coming year. Everything’s going to fall into place, oh yes.

The nature of time

So that got me thinking about time. It’s an established scientific fact that time moves more slowly when you’re waiting for something to happen, as evidenced by Clive Giggletrousers’ “boiling kettle experiment” of 1975 (no link available).

Half an hour later, still not boiled!

Widely televised, the kettle failed to boil during the eight hour show, due, it has been proposed, to the sheer number of people watching. Further anecdotal evidence has been reported in the case of terminally lazy Mirabelle Jiff of Milton Keynes, UK, who, according to witnesses, waited for something to happen to her for so long she lived to the grand old age of 723 (unsubstantiated).

However, little has been reported regarding an increased rate of the passing of time. Recently, I discovered this phenomenon in my own life! It was the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor which brought it home to me. The news reader mentioned “the death of Michael Jackson in June 2009”.

2009? 2009?

Blimey. I thought it was just a few months ago. So, with the aid of a calculator, I estimate that time for me is running at around six times “normal”. This is a bit worrying, to be honest. Even if I live until I’m eighty (is that even possible on a diet of pizza, ice cream and Marmite sandwiches?), I’ll be dead by fifty. Yoinks! Maybe if I speak nicely to my pension company, I can cash it in early.

So, please join me next year for my 70^th birthday and I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.