The Grim Reaper

Holy Smoke, guys, I am afraid of the Grim Reaper and I am not ashamed to admit it. So many of my mates have died lately, all younger than I: from brain tumours, strokes, assorted cancers and general disintegration of their internal bits. I am 71 and a quarter, which is when me old dad had his first cerebral haemorrhage. He had two in the following year and popped his clogs, so I feel I have cause to be apprehensive.

Nowadays, every headache is the onset of a brain tumour, every tightness in the chest lung cancer, every stomach gripe a fatal ulcer, every heart flutter the harbinger of an impending cardial infarct, every tight fart the onset of something nameless and nasty in the colon and points south - if there are any points south of there.

I tell you, I am in a state. Let me say in my own defence, though, that I am trying to do everything right: I cook my beefburgers on the griddle, I fry my chips in corn oil, I avoid MSG except on Fridays when I binge on a Chinese takeaway, I am down to three pork pies a week, and I am keeping my alcohol consumption well in check, no more than two bottles of wine a day, and I buy lots of fresh fruit, which to be honest mostly gets eaten by the Blackbirds.

What else can I do? Oh yes, I recycle my plastic, paper, cardboard and empty wine bottles, and I worship Lorraine Kelly. If this isn't clean living, what is?

Oh ok, you want to know about my sex life. Am I overdoing it? Overdoing what, for goodness' sake?! As far as I know it's still vigorous, but living a completely separate life now. I haven't heard from it in a while, though I did experience a brief frisson this morning when Kate Alcock smiled at me in her decollete (Well, me and a zillion other viewers. My, what that girl knows about antiques! Makes her the ideal companion for a scrote's old age!).

So, mes potes, what I want someone to do is to tell me what I can do to allay my fears and to avoid a mortal slash from the scythe of the Grim Reaper in the near future. Oh, and while you are at it, does anyone have a recipe for Ginseng Fritters?