The man who refuses to die

As shops go Christmas mad, it’s time for a column about DEATH

PEOPLE KEEP NOT DYING. How inconvenient! That’s the point of view of an anonymous gang who runs a website called deathlist.net, which lists celebrities tipped to die. The tipsters have had two embarrassing years, predicting deaths which didn’t happen.

At the time of writing, the ghoulish website lists former “Great Train Robber” Ronnie Biggs, who is 82 and in poor health, as number one mostly celeb to die.

Is Ronnie insulted? No, he’s laughing at them. In a just-published autobiography, Ronnie points out that they’ve listed him for 11 years, but he refuses to oblige them. "I should apologize to the website Death List and its followers," he snickers.

(Ronnie Biggs by Rex Features)

Deathlist defenders point out that one year they’ll get it right, so the last laugh will be theirs.

But Ronnie points out: "I won't be around to care," so the last laugh will actually be his.

I like this man’s attitude, and would urge my children to learn from him, except for the fact that he is an evil arch-criminal.

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STOP PRESS: The column you are reading appeared in the newspapers today (which most people got an hour ago). I just received the following letter:



Thanks, David. So there we have it. Mr. Biggs, if you are free, come to tea and meet my kids any time.

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ON A RELATED subject, I was thrilled to hear from a suit-wearing reader that a major financial body is advising people to stop investing in death funds. At last!

Here’s how these investments, also known as “vulture funds”, work. Guys in suits find people who are dying and make them an offer: “Instead of your life insurance payout going to your children, sign the money over to us, and we’ll give you half of it in cash right now, so you can spend it on luxuries like painkillers.”

Having no choice, they sign up. Once the sick people die, the moneymen (who are also sick people) collect twice as much cash as they spent.

So I was pleased to be told that the UK’s top watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, issued a warning urging all investors to avoid them. Until I did some fact-checking and located the actual announcement, summarized in the UK Daily Telegraph last week:

“Many of those who sell their life insurance policies to these funds go on to live far longer than expected, which means many of these investment do not deliver the expected returns.”

They’re not telling us to avoid death funds because they’re evil—but because they’re not profitable enough. And investment bankers wonder why people hate them.

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SCIENTISTS SEARCHING deep space last week confirmed the existence of a distant planet that looks just like Earth. Who wants to bet there’s a sign on the bottom? “Made in China.”

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US PRESIDENT Barack Obama was last week told to refer to a Christmas tree as a “holiday tree” to avoid offending non-Christians. A Jewish person wrote an article saying that this was needlessly fussy, and it was forwarded to me by reader Suha Cassim, a devout Muslim. What’s going on? Good sense and tolerance breaking out all over? I’m deeply suspicious. This is not the Planet Earth I know and love.

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US TV physician Dr Phil last week revealed that he did his own vasectomy. Hey, if you ever see this guy fiddling with something under the edge of a table, just quietly walk away.

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Technorati Tags: second earth,Dr Phil,interfaith,deathlist,Ronnie Biggs

Comments

[grandpa]

This English language is more and more difficult to understand.
A guy robs a train with money belonging to nobody and he is called a criminal
a gang robs everybody and they are called "bankers"
aaargh

[Natrah]

dont rule out whether he circumcised himself or not...

[Ram]

a gang robs everybody and they are called "bankers"....aaargh

Sometimes, they are called "Politicians"
Sometimes, they are called "corrupted government officials"
etc...etc...

[Lift Lurker]

As the vice-president of International Shrub Awareness Society, we are offended by "holiday tree"

Why cannot us have Christmas Shrub, or even Holiday Shrub.

[Jason]

I dunno about the rest of you, but I was content with a glass of wine for the winter solstice. I see no point in whining about others and their pagan rituals. :)