April 23, 2007

Don't forget to breathe

The secret of long life - play chess, eat porridge, laugh:
A man who bet £100 ($240) a decade ago that he would live to be 100 is preparing to pick up his £25,000 ($60,000) winnings.
So confident was bookmaker William Hill in 1997 that it gladly offered Alec Holden odds of 250/1.
But the retired engineer, born April 24, 1907, celebrates his century - to the bookies' dismay.
Mr Holden, from Epsom in Surrey, joked: “I've been very careful about what I've been doing in recent months. If I saw any hooded groups from William Hill standing in the street, I avoided them.”
“Forty birthday cards came for me this morning, including one from the Queen - in fact, I think I saw her delivering it on her bicycle this morning.”
The bet was placed on December 10 in 1997 when Mr Holden was 90.
Mr Holden, who has two sons aged 70 and 60, puts his longevity down to porridge for breakfast and “remembering to keep breathing”. He also plays chess every day..

An influential author

Apparently there's an 'influential author' who is no longer required to be studied for English degrees at most US colleges. Of the influential Ivy League colleges only Harvard considers this influential dead white male compulsory reading for a foundation in English. Well, it would be perfectly apt for this influential dead parrot. this passe' penman to be dropped from English courses altogether. He wrote about honour,duty,kingship,good,evil,the sense of tears in things and the sense of mirth in things; stuff which critical advances have revealed as mere semiotics. Brave new world.