Before I am sued for breach of copyright, the following has no connection to the confectionary, possibly American and therefore litigious, of a similar name.

I was reading the Sunday Times when it occurred to me that it is now so insubstantial that the newsagent could probably fashion it into a dart and float it round.  Years ago Sunday papers had to be delivered on a sturdy cart pulled by straining dray horses and even then, when it was like reading ‘War and Peace’ once a week,  someone old told me they were thoroughly tedious and I was aghast – how could anyone be bored reading a newspaper?  Even the poor maligned Daily Mail affords an opportunity to feel superior and Metropolitan.

Boredom was what one endured every single Sunday as a child when you certainly weren’t allowed to read Fleet Street’s delightfully lurid outpourings (Frequently involving Welsh divorces which I will explain on another occasion.  Remind me.) and your presence was required at a minimum of one extremely long and tedious church service.  Or during the school holidays which lasted for months at a time and WE DIDNT EVEN HAVE iPADS.  Try getting that past a modern mini- Emperor. (A convenient cue to mention my recently published letter to The Times on the subject of a smacking ban.  I pointed out, not unfairly, that the modern parent rarely beats their offspring because they are too busy on their mobile devices to ever notice how badly their children are behaving).

I have now reached that age when all four pages of the Sunday Times bore me.  Even without clairvoyant powers I can predict their contents at New Year: joining gyms, losing weight, not drinking  (Don’t get me started) and then in a Damasene moment, it struck me that boredom is what kills us.  Except obviously in plane crashes, avalanches or murders.  Ignore those and focus.  As we age we’ve been everywhere and done everything at least twice before.  We are bored and this lowers our immune system and we get something horrid and die.  It could be the Alzheimer’s is extreme boredom with the brain simply giving up.

I think it’s worth writing to the Lancet and point out, not for the first time, what is staring them in the face.  The clue to longevity is not low cholesterol, it’s keeping yourself interested.  Just look at the Queen.  And I trust that the thirty seconds you’ve spent reading this has extended your life by a similar amount.