Ethel is 115, but doesn’t look a day over 105. As always happens in these news stories, Ethel was asked what the secret to living such a long life is.
Her advice is to never argue with anyone. That feels like it is good advice if you live in a time where duelling is common. Most of my rows these days are with conspiracy theorists on social media and very few are resolved with actual combat, so I think I’m safe.
The actual secret to being the world’s oldest person is being a woman. We gents never get to win that one or even get on the medal podium. It’s basically genetics but we don’t like that answer.
The news loves to ask these superannuated people their secret to old age and they always say something about drinking every day or eating whatever you want. If those behaviours made you live longer do you now how many 100-year-olds there’d be? The postal service would collapse under the strain of all the royal telegrams.
On her 115th birthday, Ms Caterham received not just a telegram but a letter from the King congratulating her on a "truly remarkable milestone". I don’t know if she’ll get one every year now but eventually she’ll get bored and think, “This could’ve been an email.”
She was born on the 21st of August 1909, which means she is the last surviving subject of Edward VII. She must have lost count of how many Prime Ministers she’s lived though, although thanks to the last Government a lot of us did.
The new record has been confirmed by Guinness World Records and LongeviQuest, a database of the world's oldest people. It is impressive but one news source pointed out she lived through the sinking of the Titanic, World War One, the Russian Revolution, the Great Depression and World War Two. She wasn’t on the Titanic so it’s just a coincidence that these things happened concurrently with her.
By the same logic I lived through two Iraq wars and Brighton’s West Pier burning down and yet I look quite good considering.
But Ethel is right. Maybe not the secret to a long life but to a happy life is not arguing with people. Her full answer was, "Never arguing with anyone, I listen and I do what I like."
However long we’re here for, that is a good way to live your life.
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They were the part of speech that no one paid attention to. If you’d already used someone’s name, instead of repeating that name again and again like someone in sales who’d been on a neurolinguistic programming course, you’d say him or her and we’d all know who you meant.
Then pronouns became the front line of a gender war between JK Rowling and most of the cast of her films. The message was that pronouns were the most important part of speech. You simply had to ask people what their pronouns were.
The latest confusing breakthrough is that a UK university has now issued new guidance to students saying that should not ask people what their pronouns are as it could be offensive.
Just to recap, asking about pronouns is offensive and not asking is offensive. Good luck out there.
Liverpool University has told students that asking someone what their pronouns are could put them under pressure to reveal their gender when they don’t want to.
Let’s remember that no one asking about this stuff is how use used to live for centuries, so I think we’d cope.
If I am honest, I’m such a stickler for grammar I don’t even understand how that conversation would go. If someone asked me what my pronouns are I’d have to answer, “I and me, because that’s how pronouns work.”
They’d say, “No, I mean what pronouns should I use about you?”
I’d say, “You and you. They are the second person objective and subjective pronouns. You could use thou and thee if you really wanted. You’d sound a little odd but I get the feeling that’s not worrying you.”
They’d say, in an annoyed tone, “No, I mean what pronouns should I use about you when I am talking to someone else? Third person pronouns.”
To which I would honestly say, “I don’t care. I won’t be there, will I?”
It’s a shame this grammar question can’t be separated from the gender issue. I think if someone wished to tell you that they feel like they are a certain gender, whether you understand it or not you can accept that they feel that way.
The pronoun side of this is where you seek to control how others speak, and that’s where the friction starts.
I’m not even good at remembering people’s names let alone their pronouns. So use my solution, refer to everyone as chief and hope they don’t notice.
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