Wednesday, November 29, 2006
There's a Divinity That Shapes Our Ends
It's hard not to believe that Hamlet has a point when Allen Carr dies of lung cancer. Carr gave up a 100-a-day habit 23 years ago and went on, apparently, to cure millions of their nicotine addiction. But it's difficult to know exactly what the Divinity is up to here. Qutting smoking and saving others should, perhaps, have saved him from such a death. On the other hand, the message could be that the weed will always get you, so don't even start. Or something. I am more at ease with the death of Jim Fixx in 1984. He was the great prophet of jogging for health - we would rightly call it running now as jogging is a most horrible word, suggestive of an unwise bouncing movement that would inevitably result in skeletal damage. Fixx, of course, died of a heart attack while running. He was 52. Very neat of the Divinity if He is against running on principle. But I think His real point was that Fixx, in his Complete Book of Running, invoked Mao-Tse Tung as an authority. The old mass murderer approved of running. But, if there is one thing of which we can be sure, it is that Mao angered the Divinity more than any other human being. So, if you want to live a long time, don't smoke at all and never say anything nice about Mao. Obviously.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
In fact, it occurs to me that the case of Robert Atkins, creator of the Atkins Diet is of some interest. He died from a head injury after a fall on ice in 2003. Rumours spread that he was obese and this was the ultimate cause of his death. His widow denied this. But it was clear we wanted it to be true.
ReplyDeleteWhat would the Divinity say about Herman Tarnower's death?
ReplyDeleteCough, cough, cough.....Camel Lights bane of my life. I've tried stubby little Habanas but my wife doesn't like the after odours. Maybe I should try snuff? Or revert to a nautical pipe- aaaargh go the pirates. On a completely unrelated subject, what about 'Zipppeedeee, Zippeeedeee, its Polly's dawning new day......sung to a rousing WW2 US tune?
ReplyDeleteI think, Susan, that the moral of the Tarnower story is twofold. First, if you see an ex-headmistress with a gun, get behind something solid. Secondly, do not ever under any circumstances be tempted to write a diet book.
ReplyDeleteMao approved of running. I didn't know that. Thanks Bryan. He didn't like running away though, did he. There's another name for that: defecting. Regrettably (or maybe not), I am a dedicated smoker and a devotee of the sedentary life. And while I'm at it, Mao must have had some redeeming qualities.
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