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Ageing & Growing Old

Are you growing older?

  • Yes, I am

    Votes: 82 61.7%
  • No, I'm getting younger

    Votes: 28 21.1%
  • Sorry, I don't understand the question

    Votes: 16 12.0%
  • I'm a Mod; I think adding silly polls to chat threads is pointless

    Votes: 7 5.3%

  • Total voters
    133
On the Longer Life thread Emps posted this:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewt ... 668#614668
which gives a good review of the problems of old age and what might be done about it.

On his 72nd birthday, Maurice Chevalier was asked how he felt about the advancing years. He replied
"Considering the alternative, it's not too bad at all." :D
 
:(

D'you realise Smells Like Teen Spirit was fifteen years ago? :shock:
 
Was in the pub tonight, and a young lad and his girlfriend were there, talking to a couple of students.

This lad looked barely old enough to have his driving licence, but it seems from the conversation that he is a Royal Navy helicopter pilot... :shock:


I'll get me coat and, yes, that is my zimmer frame. :(

:_old:
 
Reading this thread again* reminds me of the 17-year old who asked me out a few weeks ago... I was flattered, of course, but said he was too young for me and anyway I was already spoken for...

When I told him how old I was, he went as white as the proverbial ghost and blurted out "you're older than my mum!". :roll:

Jane.

* I think I've read it before, or at least the first few pages, but my memory could be at fault there as I don't remember the poll :D
 
mejane1 said:
........reminds me of the 17-year old who asked me out a few weeks ago... I was flattered, of course, but said he was too young for me and anyway I was already spoken for...

Makes me think of someone who I worked with, who was propositioned by a very young patient, (his Mother was waiting outside).

On being asked if she would like to go to the pictures with him? She replied: "No!!! They wouldn't let you into the type of film I go to!!!!!"
 
I had a mild panic attack when I realised Definitely Maybe is now 12 years old and I still can't get my Noel Gallagher hair cut right! :(
 
I turned 40 in September (the wife says it made me a better person!) and all I've got to show for it is a unassailable beer gut and a nasty new pollen allergy.

Oh yeah, I'm hot. Woo.
 
Much the same here - turn 40 later this year and have already had a few "What did I come into the kitchen for?" moments.

And you actually rather relish the sort of very quiet weekend where you do very little but potter about.
 
stuneville said:
Much the same here - turn 40 later this year and have already had a few "What did I come into the kitchen for?" moments.
Huh! Babies!

I went to a cashpoint machine the other day and walked away without taking my money.... :shock:

Luckily some honest soul ran after me with it!
 
Just had to buy a NHS prescription prepayment card, cost me £93.20 for the year. Too young to get free prescriptions, but needing two or three prescription only medications a month!!!!!

Some sort of rite of passage, I guess?
 
Everything comes to he who waits...
Veteran gets freedom of home town

The oldest surviving British war veteran is to be awarded the freedom of his East Sussex home town.
Henry Allingham, whose 110th birthday is on 6 June, is due to be given the honour during a special ceremony at Eastbourne Town Hall next Tuesday.

One of his friends, Dennis Goodwin from the World War I Veterans' Association, said Mr Allingham felt "privileged" to be getting the freedom of Eastbourne.

The former aircraft engineer was part of the RAF's creation in 1918.

'Zest for life'

The Mayor of Eastbourne, Councillor Graham Marsden, said: "It is a great pleasure to be able to bestow the freedom of Eastbourne upon Henry Allingham.

"He is a man of distinction and most worthy of the honour.

"He has served his country well, is a first class ambassador for the town and, despite his great age, still has a tremendous zest for life."

Mr Goodwin added: "In receiving the freedom of Eastbourne, Henry feels honoured and privileged to be representing the five million men that were under arms at the end of the war and more especially the near one million who never came home."

Mr Allingham began his military service in September 1915 and was formally discharged from the Royal Air Force four years later.

During his career he joined HMT Kingfisher and was involved in the historic Battle of Jutland in 1916.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sout ... 827302.stm
 
Soaps, Talk Shows May Dull Aging Brains

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter Mon Mar 20, 5:07 PM ET

MONDAY, March 20 (HealthDay News) -- Could Oprah and General Hospital be bad for your brain?
ADVERTISEMENT

New research suggests that elderly women who watch daytime soap operas and talk shows are more likely to suffer from cognitive impairment than women who abstain from such fare.

Researchers stress that it's not clear if watching these TV shows leads to weaker brainpower, or vice-versa. And they say it's possible that another explanation might be at work.

But there's definitely "something going on with those two types of television programming," said study co-author Joshua Fogel, an assistant professor of behavioral sciences at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Fogel launched the federally funded study after wondering how television affects the brains of older women, many of whom are avid watchers of the tube. Previous studies had already looked at possible connections between TV watching and senility, but came up with differing results, Fogel said.

In the new study, Fogel and a colleague looked at data from a 1996 study of healthy women in Baltimore aged 70-79.

The researchers asked the women about their favorite types of TV shows, offering a list of 14 options including news, soap operas, comedies and game shows, among others.

The women also took tests that measured their memory, decision-making abilities and other cognitive skills.

Fogel and his colleague looked for patterns linking cognition abilities and the women's favorite TV shows. Their findings appear in the March issue of the Southern Medical Journal.

Women who watched talk shows were 7.3 times more likely to have long-term memory problems, the researchers said, while those who watched soap operas were 13.5 times more likely to have problems with attention.

The researchers didn't find any evidence that TV shows helped improve cognitive abilities in the women studied, either.

What's going on? The study can't and doesn't answer that question, Fogel said, leaving it unclear if a preference for soaps and talk shows is a cause of cognitive difficulties or a symptom. "One possibility is that people are unable to watch the other shows because they're too cognitively stimulating," Fogel said.

One researcher who has studied the effects of television watching on children said the study suggests that, "viewing television in a way that reduces active mental engagement may lead to poorer cognitive outcomes in older people."

Frederick Zimmerman, director of the University of Washington's Child Health Institute, added that the findings are significant because the apparent effects of television watching are quite striking. He said he's also found evidence that excessive television watching hurts kids' academic and cognitive development.

But Zimmerman cautioned that "it would be premature to tell Granny to turn off the soaps on the basis of this study."

And in his editorial, Albert Einstein College of Medicine neurologist Dr. Joe Verghese said that, "depending on the program, television viewing might even have cognitive benefits. Generations of children have grown up learning their alphabets, and presumably increasing their cognitive reserve, from programs such as Sesame Street. Television viewing may also help reduce chronic stress levels."

Fogel believes the study findings are more than just a curiosity, however. In fact, he thinks doctors should take them into account when they evaluate patients.

If an elderly woman says she enjoys watching talk shows or soap operas, Fogel said, that might be a sign that she's having cognitive problems and should undergo special screening.

More information

For advice on healthy aging, head to the U.S. National Institute on Aging.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20060320/hl ... gingbrains
 
Interesting find, tonyblair11! It makes me feel a little smug, as I never watch soaps at all.

In fact, as I get older, I find myself watching less TV all round. Even documentaries are starting to get a bit ho-hum, as the style and approach is so often formulaic, and the material is frequently stretched to fill a time slot. I'm rarely so gripped that I'm left feeling "Hey, I need to know more about that!"

'So what do you watch?' I hear you cry. (I must ask the doctor about these voices I hear... :D ).

Live sport (mostly football, rugby and cricket)
Some detective shows (currently Dalziel and Pascoe)
Some comedy shows (HIGNFY is a must)

And my favourite current show is Hustle. A good mix of action and humour, with a Fortean look at deception and belief in the way the 'mark' sees what he wants to see.

rynner recommends Hustle!
 
Who has time for TV, what with all the puttering, complaining, tipples of sherry and games of Whist?
 
YOU KNOW YOU'RE GETTING

"MARVELOUSLY MATURE" WHEN.............



1. You and your teeth don't sleep together.

2. Your try to straighten out the wrinkles
in your socks and discover you
aren't wearing any.

3. At the breakfast table you hear snap,
crackle, pop and you're not eating
cereal.

4. Your back goes out but you stay home.

5. When you wake up looking like your driver's license picture.

6. It takes two tries to get up from the couch.

7. When your idea of a night out is sitting on the patio.

8. When happy hour is a nap.

9. When you're on vacation and your energy
runs out before your money does.

10. When you say something to your kids that
your mother said to you and you
always hated it.

11. When all you want for your birthday
is to not be reminded of your age.

12. When you step off a curb and look
down one more time to make sure the
street is still there.

13. Your idea of weight lifting is standing up.

14. It takes longer to rest than it did to get tired.

15. Your memory is shorter and your complaining lasts longer.

16. Your address book has mostly names that start with Dr.

17. You sit in a rocking chair and can't get it going.

18. The pharmacist has become your new best friend.


19. Getting "lucky" means you found
your car in the parking lot.

20. The twinkle in your eye is merely a
reflection from the sun on your bifocals.

21. It takes twice as long -
to look half as good.

22. Everything hurts, and what
doesn't hurt - doesn't work.

23. You look for your glasses for half an
hour and they were on your head the whole time.

24. You sink your teeth into a steak -
and they stay there.

25. You give up all your bad habits
and still don't feel good.

26. You have more patience, but it is
actually that you just don't care anymore.

27. You finally get your head together
and your body starts falling apart.

28. You wonder how you could be over the hill
when you don't even remember being on top of it.
 
rynner said:
'So what do you watch?' I hear you cry. (I must ask the doctor about these voices I hear... :D ).

Live sport (mostly football, rugby and cricket)
Some detective shows (currently Dalziel and Pascoe)
Some comedy shows (HIGNFY is a must)

And my favourite current show is Hustle. A good mix of action and humour, with a Fortean look at deception and belief in the way the 'mark' sees what he wants to see.

rynner recommends Hustle!

Ryn, I'm starting to think you are old mate!


We are having to buy a TV licence this week. We moved into our current house (that has no aerial) and haven't really watched any TV. But we watch lots of films on DVD, so we have to buy a 120 quid TV licence...


Still, all those series I've missed, I'll be watching on DVD soon... like 'Lost', and 'Carnivale', and '4400' and 'Firefly'...
 
<looks puzzled>

What had watching DVDs got to do with TV licences?

Get your set detuned by a TV man, and a letter from him saying its no longer capable of recieving incomming signals and show that to the Tv licencing authority
 
OK, most of you out there are young enough not to be worried...
Bowel cancer screening delay row

The government has been accused of putting lives at risk by dragging its heels over the introduction of a national bowel screening programme.
In August last year the Department of Health pledged to roll out a programme for all 60 to 69-year-olds from April.

But Cancer Research UK said lack of preparation and funding meant there was bound to be a significant delay.

The Department of Health is adamant that the screening programme was going ahead as planned.

Bowel cancer kills over 16,000 people in the UK each year - more than all but one other type of the disease.

It is hoped that a screening programme could save about 1,000 lives a year by picking up the disease at an early stage, when it is most treatable.

In response to a parliamentary question about the programme, health minister Rosie Winterton said one site had been selected to begin the national roll out.

But Cancer Research UK said that four others promised by ministers had yet to be identified.

It said the site identified by Ms Winterton - in Rugby - had been up and running since September 2000, and that not a single new centre had been set up to get the programme under way.

The charity also said no home testing kits needed for the programme had been ordered.

In addition, the government had failed to confirm full funding for the programme.

Question of trust

Professor Alex Markham, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: "The government has reneged on its promise over this.

"To claim the programme is going ahead as planned is a distortion of the truth.

"The government has fudged the issue and now says it 'hopes' the centres should be established by March 2007.

"Last year it pledged that it would start the scheme next week. This is a gross betrayal of trust and lives will be lost as a result of this vacillating behaviour."

Professor Markham said the Rugby pilot had so far identified 1,200 people whose lives had been saved by early surgery.

"I think it is a disgrace that the rest of the country does not have access to this simple technology."

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "There is absolutely no truth in the rumour that the national bowel cancer screening programme will be shelved.


"Funding has been agreed for the programme, which will be rolled out as planned from April 2006."

The intention of the scheme is to send home testing kits to everybody in the target age group every two years.

The patients would then send stool samples back to the screening centre.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4857752.stm
Hmmm..
"Funding has been agreed for the programme, which will be rolled out as planned from April 2006."

The intention of the scheme is to send home testing kits to everybody in the target age group every two years.

Sad fact is that as you get older, ' It gets harder to keep your butt clean' (according to a US joke video), and more serious problems may be lurking.

I'll let you know if the Gubmint is really taking an interest in my bowels - so far, no sign!
 
We used to have a thread called First and Last Times, which has slipped down the electronic tunnel of oblivion, so I'll post this here:

Today, for the very last time, I bought a bus ticket in Cornwall. (I think I'll take a photo of it as a momento.)

Because, from tomorrow, for me and other card holders, all bus travel in the county will be free!

Hooray! :D
 
Crikey, so it really is 'compost tomorrow' for you!
(I mean for the fact you live in lovely cornwall.. trees.. gardens...compost..never mind I'll just go to bed)
 
Today I got in the post a trial copy CD of an RYA/Admiralty Chart Plotter.

(A nice little pressie, although I don't know how they got my name and address. I was an RYA member years ago, but they don't have my current address, and I don't recall any direct dealings with the Hydrographic Office either....)

But this makes me think. As navigation becomes more electronic, and as traditional lighthouses as a result become redundant and subsequently decommissioned, will I be one of the last seafarers to have experienced the joys of finally identifying a light in the murk of a dirty night (or the worry when an expected light fails to show)?
 
Elsewhere on the MB today I agreed that I have been swanning about in the spring sunshine, and drinking in sunny beer gardens.

But there was a down-side.

For the first time in my life, I paid over £3 for a pint.

(It doesn't seem that long ago I said I'd give up drinking if beer went above £1 a pint...)


To put all this in perspective, when I started drinking (back in the early 60s), bitter was 1/6- a pint, or 2s for best bitter. (2s is 10p in today's money!)

Lager had hardly encroached on the market then, although a little later some places opened Bier Kellars, where German style beers were sold at exhorbitant prices (by the standards of the day).

Anyhow, it seems that in my long and not always honourable drinking career, beer prices have inflated by about 1500%! :shock:

(And I went past Goonhilly today too... see my first post here.)
 
Just heard Piers Morgan on TV saying he's about to launch the country's first national newspaper for children.

But I seem to remember at least one other from my youth/childhood.
Anyone else remember this, or have I got to google for it myself?
 
If I had children I wouldn't let them anywhere near a newspaper that Piers Morgan had anything to do with.
 
You lot are bloody useless!

(Probably all arrived on Ship B... grumble, grumble :evil: )

Here's an online one, been going a few years now:
http://www.thenewspaper.org.uk/
(but not the one I was thinking of. And there are others like that)


But I think this is the one I was thinking of (and it goes back further than I thought):

Arthur Mee's Children's Newpaper:
http://tinyurl.com/rg2xf

But this best sums up what I remember, especially as it brings in one of my early heroes, Patrick Moore:
The Sky at Night began on the evening of 24th April 1957, when most readers of this website were less than a sparkle of DNA in their father's scrotum, Often it gets shoved late and lost in the schedules, but it still goes out monthly where it remains a tribal focal point for generations of quasi-Curly Watts and comet-spotting anoraks. When it began, Lonnie Donegan was number one in the pop charts and the cosmos was a smaller and simpler place. Planets, at best, were blurry discs the size of coins, viewed from exclusively ground-based observatories. No robot probes or Hubble space telescopes. Even the Big Bang theory of the origins of the universe was the lesser and unlikeliest of two hotly disputed contentions. The other, championed by Yorkshire-born astronomer Fred Hoyle, was the now maligned, 'steady state' idea that a constantly renewing universe had always been as it is now, and always would be - a calmer, less spectacular, more poetic concept.

Somewhere around this time, Patrick Moore wrote a regular column for Arthur Mee's Children's Newspaper where I confess I first encountered his contagiously boundless enthusiasm.

Children's Newspaper, eh? The clue is in the title! :D


BTW, this is just chat, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Human Condition, oh no, not at all.. (just ask Emps :roll: )
 
rynner said:
Just heard Piers Morgan on TV saying he's about to launch the country's first national newspaper for children.

But I seem to remember at least one other from my youth/childhood.
Anyone else remember this, or have I got to google for it myself?

Heck, yes! I remember buying a few editions of a newspaper for kids, way back in the early 70s. Can't remember what it was called, though.
 
Another little Blast from the Past:
MUFFIN THE MULE COMES BACK OUT TO PLAY


11:00 - 13 April 2006
Fans of Muffin the Mule will be able to relive their childhoods on Easter Monday when the original puppet goes on display.

The star of children's TV is coming to Whimple in East Devon as part of an exhibition to mark the 60th anniversary of Muffin's first appearance on the small screen.

Muffin the Mule made his debut in 1946 on Children's Hour, alongside presenter Annette Mills. He transfixed young viewers of the programme for the next ten years.

He disappeared from television screens for many years, but was reinvented using 3D computer animation for CBeebies, the BBC's channel for pre-schoolers.

Joining the original Muffin at the Whimple Heritage Centre are his puppet friends Peregrine the Penguin, Grace the Giraffe and Oswald the Ostrich.

The puppets are being loaned by the son-in-law and grandson of the puppeteers who created Muffin the Mule, Ann Hogarth and Jan Bussell.

The famous puppeteers pulled the puppets' strings expertly, and off camera, to make the characters come alive to the young audience.

The husband-and-wife team retired to Whimple in the 1970s and used to entertain villagers with puppet performances.

Curator Alan Smith said: "By all accounts Easter Monday may be quite busy because I have had enquiries from most parts of the county and from Cornwall as well."

He said the puppets were in good condition, given that they were 60 years old.

Muffin can be seen at the centre in Church Street between 10am and 3.30pm on Easter Monday. He will also be on display on July 8, Whimple's Village Day, and August 28.
http://tinyurl.com/o9asl
 
My shit is that the year moment came when I was listening to a stone roses cd ( I nearly said album) and realised that it was older than a led zeppelin cd had been when I first heard the stone roses, who were my transition from rocker to raver :roll:
 
Imagine this:
HOW WMN GAVE ONE MAN A LINK TO THE PAST

11:00 - 15 April 2006
John Cole will see film footage of his mother as a young woman for the first time when it is broadcast on BBC Two next week - thanks to the Western Morning News. Mr Cole, 70, from Taunton, Somerset, will himself feature in the programme The Lost World of Friese-Greene, which follows the adventures of film pioneer Claude Friese-Greene, who travelled from Land's End to John O'Groats filming the people and countryside in 1924 in colour for the first time.

Mr Cole's mother, Beulah Burgoyne, starred in a scene in the film shot at a Plymouth open-air swimming pool.

He was put in touch with the programme makers after a still from the film appeared in the Western Morning News last summer.

Mr Cole explained how his cousin's wife had seen the picture and linked it to the family.

"She rang me and told me to look at the Western Morning News," he said.

"In it was a picture of four 'bathing belles' from Plymouth Corinthians Swimming Club that Friese-Greene took in 1924, one of whom was my mother.

"I rang the BBC and said 'my mum was a page three girl in the Western Morning News!'"

He was put in touch with the team behind The Lost World, who came to interview him. He is seen in the programme, to be broadcast on Tuesday, April 18, chatting with the programme's presenter, historian Dan Cruickshank.

He has still to see the film himself, and said it would be quite a moving experience.

"I have not many older pictures of her. Mainly, I have pictures of her in her older years," he said.

"It might be difficult to resolve that person with the person in the film."

He described his mother as a "lovely but determined lady", a keen swimmer who taught him life-saving skills as a boy.

The family moved from Plymouth to Somerset a few years after the film was shot.

The programme moves across the whole Westcountry in the first episode of the three-part series on Friese-Greene.

He was hoping to make it big in Hollywood with his unique colour film process, so he set off on an intrepid drive across the country from end to end with the camera rolling, capturing scenes of a blossoming inter-war Britain to try and break into the American film market.

The series of films, called The Open Road, has been brought to life again by the BBC and British Film Institute, who produced the highly popular series, The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon.

Dan Cruickshank retraces the original route in a vintage Vauxhall D-type just like the one Friese-Greene drove.

He tracks down locations from the original films, some easy to find and some requiring a bit of local sleuthing.

The first episode follows Cruickshank from Land's End to Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.
http://tinyurl.com/kuqfy
 
Reminder: the programme about Friese-Green, mentioned in the previous post, is on BBC2 tonight at 2100.
 
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