Are You Still Doing It?

Your annual M J Harper health check has come round, again.

Why not just stop doing it? Honestly, you disappoint me, you really do. But if you must, you must. Let us instead look to the future. It’s more of the same for you, fella me lad, but with diminishing marginal utility. So you should be all right.

That doesn’t mean giving up. You’re always giving up. Why not try giving up giving up for a change? Or better still, stop starting in the first place. Fits and starts, vicars and tarts, as the Cockneys say.

Always remember the future is the past but with knobs on. Or at your age, off. It doesn’t make a lot of difference as long as you’ve got your health. It’s a shame you haven’t but there you go, you should have thought of that before you started doing it. Water under the bridge flows silent to the sea.

But enough! We can always peer into the glass darkly. Anticipate St Peter before it’s too late. A wise man once said it’s always too late and that certainly applies to the two of you. Three, if you include St Peter. Who met him when he arrived at the Pearly Gates? Ending life with a paradox is no life.

Where was I? Oh yes, you passed. But next year? No guarantees. I might not be here for all you know.