I was awoken by the news this morning with the chilling words “cigarettes, whisky and wild, wild women…” which was enough to notify me that Henry Allingham, the world’s oldest living man, has died at age 113. This brings two questions – what relevance is the phrase to knowing that? And why do I have such an admiration for this particular supercentenarian?
The phrase was how he described his longevity, which I happened to remember. Recently I gained an interest in longevity and as he was the oldest living man I visited his Wikipedia page often just in case, and it was rather weird as I visited his page yesterday, even weirder that I thought about him at about 1/half 1 in the morning (just a couple of hours before his death), so consequently I’m saddened to hear the news.
It’s also sad that he’s one of the few left born in the 19th century, the oldest living women stretches to 1894, but there’s possibly more that have been unconfirmed. Finally, it’s interesting to note that if you’re lucky enough to live to 110, there’s only a 2% chance of living to 115 (so it beats me how Jeanne Calment lived to 122).
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