Good heavens, I have been quoted on the Grauniad website!
"Ken Frost, on his blog Nanny Knows Best, says the government is misguided as children are 'instinctively drawn to anything naughty or illegal'. Besides, he suggests, all this health advice and prohibition is missing a crucial point.
'It's not the length of life that counts, but the quality. We are ignoring the fundamental problem that extending people's lifespans, without taking into account the quality of those extended lifespans, is storing up trouble for the future and wrong.'"
Drinks all round!
Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.
Show your contempt for Nanny by buying a T shirt or thong from Nanny's Store.
www.nannyknowsbest.com is brought to you by www.kenfrost.com "The Living Brand"
Celebrate the joy of living with champagne. Click and drink!
Why not really indulge yourself, by doing all the things that Nanny really hates? Click on the relevant link to indulge yourselves; Food, , Bonking, Toys, Gifts and Flowers, Groceries
Why the surprise, Ken.
ReplyDeleteAs with all your posts,common sense abounds.
Perhaps the Grauniad could do with a new feature writer,get in touch with them,i'm sure their readers would enjoy a dose of real life and sensible commentary!
Ken:
ReplyDeleteI hope they managed to spell your name correctly.
Perhaps you should ask them if they are interested in a NKB column, although I suspect they may not be as they have been Nanny's mouth piece in the past, the printed version of the BBC.
So, Ken Forst, leg end of the globosphere.
ReplyDeleteObviously you are being monitored ...
Grant
"It's not the length but the quality" - why cannot people have both?
ReplyDeleteWhen you are over seventy maybe you can judge on these things. Till then you are propagating the notions of spoilt children.
cramerj,
ReplyDeleteMy father lived to his mid 80's. Fortunately, for most of his "elderly" period, he was relatively free of hospitals.
However, in his last 6 months he was in and out of our local one for protracted periods of time, as his body entered the "dying phase".
During one of those periods in hospital he was infected with a bug that temporarily affected his reason.
He made it very clear to the doctors and health visitors (and to myself and my mother) that under no circumstances would he allow them to artificially extend his life by operations/dramatic interventions/long term hospitalisations.
He told me on several ocassions that he wanted to die (as in his view his "natural term" had been exceeded).
Fortunately he died naturally at home last year, before the cancer got to the painful stage; and before the doctors dragged him off to permanent geriatric care.
He was not a spoilt child, he hated being reliant on others, he hated being weak and hated being near hospitals etc
Was he qualified to judge that life after a certain period of time is lousy?
I hope that I will be in a position to follow his example.
Ken
cramerj,
ReplyDeleteIf the aging process leaves one relatively fit and healthy in mind and body there is absolutely no reason why people should not have both longevity and quality of life. Government fiscal policies allowing.
For many this is indeed the case, but for many more it is not and there is, frankly, nothing that medicine can do to reverse some of the effects of age that severely reduce quality by most of its measures. What they can do for some is extend the period of survival. Such activity may not suit all when it really comes to the decision point.
In my opinion if one takes a long detached unemotional look at health and health care the issues of keeping people alive simply because it is possible in medical terms seem to me at best to be setting unrealistic expectations for society and its embedded fear and concern about death. At worst it consigns frail people to an extended period of dying without offering a purpose for those still mentally able to assess the situation.
The human will to survive is a remarkable thing, though not unique in the world's fauna. It's just that sometimes willingness of the group to assist those reaching the end of the road may be misplaced and not entirely in the interest of the recipient of the help. In my view.
My view is, of course, not based on my personal direct experience but on that of my mother and to an extent her two sisters, who all passed away relatively quickly, in the time between illness onset and departure. I compare that to the mother of a friend who, when last I heard, was still physically fit but fell into the clutches of Alzheimers some years ago.
I suppose it could be argued that since she is on a good nursing home and whilst staying physically capable, her quality of life is still good although it would be difficult to assess what her expectations might be on that side.
Longevity seems not to be a problem for her.
From the point of view of my current ability to still think with some logic (I believe) from time to time I would not wish to risk slipping into an extended life that I was unable to influence much if at all. I could be wrong I suppose. Perhaps once one gets to that stage it does not matter how long life is extended, though that would seem rather pointless.
Nanny, no doubt, would relish the numbers of her charges she could so readily control, though perhaps not the expense and responsibility.
Grant
Congratulations Ken.
ReplyDelete