On Mortality and Dentists.

The greatly heightened perception of mortality which came along with the cancer issue is now growing into an obsession with the subject. Tonight I looked out of my office window as the dusk was gathering and wondered whether it would be the last time I shall ever see a Christmas Day darken. And I find there to be a strange satisfaction in reflecting upon the fact that in everybody’s life there is a day on which they will wake up for the last time.

My dentist tells me that such an obsession will shorten my life, but then she also talks of the future possibility of needing dentures and suggests I might consider the alternative of tooth implants at £2,000 a tooth. She never jokes, so it’s perhaps fortunate that her Romanian accent is strong and I miss quite a lot of what she says. And I don’t suppose it will go amiss to repeat that she’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.