Somebody dies and his friends say ‘he passed’. Passed what? He didn’t pass. He failed. He took the most basic test of all, ‘are you responsive?’, and his answers fell short of the required standard. True, he was awarded a bit of paper, a death certificate, but it’s no use to him on his CV.

Death was easier when I was a kid. People spent most of their lives dying. They ate burgers, pork chops and potatoes fried in lard. They shunned exercise and fresh fruit. They filled their cars with leaded petrol (which gave the air a pleasing lavender tinge). They glugged down beer and gin galore. And they sucked burning tobacco fumes into their lungs. My grandparents smoked 30 or 40 cigarettes a day, which was normal back then. They died in their early seventies. My parents quit smoking and reached th

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