Sex, Death & The Meaning of Life

Another great BBC documentary.
Great stuff.

When I first went to live in the UK, I became painfully aware of the vast differences in our cultures. One of the most glaring was that Brits believe in death. They know it's inevitable. They're pretty depressed about it most of the time. (The tremendous benefit of this is that it hones their dark sense of humor to a razor edge.)

Yanks, OTOH, believe that death is optional... if they just avoid gluten, carbs and beef, eat plenty of fish oil, vitamins and raw greenery, and stay fit by cleaning up the beaches and participating in English country dancing (or square dancing or two-stepping or line dancing or whatever suits their fancy), then they definitely WILL NOT DIE.

I liked the example of the family who are all centenarians and haven't done anything at all to stay healthy except eating, drinking, sleeping and continuing to get up every day.

As you said, Tom, another great documentary from the Brits. Check out their series about the effects of climate change. They directly address all the nonsense people get in their heads about why it isn't happening. They don't try to sneak the information in; they just say, "Bollocks. Get over you idiocy. Here are the facts."

Of course, they're nicer about it.

Here is part two!
Part three in the next post.

part three