My secret? A bacon and egg sarnie every morning and 20 fags a day

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

World's oldest man now in Hampshire. He was 12 when West Brom last won the league.

[Various Artist]

I went down a massive Wikipedia-and-associated-press-articles rabbit hole there, thanks Rogin. It's always fascinating to read about supercentenarians, not least because they all have wildly differing suggestions for the secrets of their extremely long life. Bob might just have hit on the definitive one, though:

He said the secret to his longevity was "to avoid dying".

Learned several fascinating things, not least that Britain's oldest living man (Bob Weighton here) and woman (Joan Eileen Hocquard) were both born on the same day – 29 March 1908. More remarkably still, until last August he was sharing the record for Britain's oldest man with Perthshire's Alf Smith, who was also born that day; the two men never met yet apparently they were exchanging birthday cards for the last few years. And the current second-oldest living woman in the country, Violet Davies-Evans, was born the very next day.

There's an odd parallel there: Henry Allingham, Britain's oldest ever man and who was also the world's oldest man when he died in 2009, was for some considerable period (that is, in the context of an area of record-holding that is inevitably fairly transient, i.e. for a good couple of years or more I think) beforehand the joint-second-oldest man on Earth – i.e. by coincidence there was some chap in America who was born on the very same day in 1896, though as is normally the way with these things they were stuck behind a Japanese incumbent for top spot, with only Allingham outliving the latter. (Henry was better known as one of the very last British survivors of the First World War, last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, last founding member of the RAF, last WW1 veteran to march past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day and one of the last three to go to any of the Remembrance Days there – 2008 – along with last survivor of the trenches Harry Patch, who died exactly a week after Allingham in July '09.)

The Wikipedia list I found particularly fascinating was the one of living centenarians known for something other than their mere longevity, not least for the clutch of Hollywood connections. Learned from that that Francis Ford Coppola's uncle, Steven Spielberg's father and Mel Gibson's father are all still going at over 100 (as too, obviously, was Michael Douglas' father until very recently), all of whom have other strings to their bows – though I see Mr Gibson Sr is a veritable fount of batshit-crazy conspiracy theories over everything from the Holocaust to 9/11 so that may explain a lot. I'm also pleased to see that James "Gaia Theory" Lovelock has now hit his century, as has – last month – Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.

Also rather marvellous is that the oldest living former professional footballer is Arthur Smith of Walmersley, Bury, who is still hale and hearty at 104 (b. 8 May 1915). He played briefly for Bury and Leicester City before having his pro career wrecked by the outbreak of the Second World War. Scarcely credibly, he was organist and choirmaster at his local church for fully 80 years, from 1935 to 2015, before retiring on his 100th birthday. I wonder if he's read Giggler's Bury book.


Back on Bob Weighton, meanwhile:

He said Brexit was "a total mess", following Britain's failure to leave the European Union on his birthday.

"My own feeling is that if there were defects, and there were quite obviously defects, we can negotiate on the inside rather than walking off the field with the cricket ball and saying 'I'm not playing'."

And found this, from a couple of years ago:

England's oldest man has said he is a "bit irked" to be celebrating his 109th birthday on the same day Brexit is triggered.

Bob Weighton said he was "not enamoured" with all of the European Union's decisions and spending, but felt quitting was a "mistake".

He said he did not regard Theresa May's signing of Article 50, as "a step forward at all".

"She didn't ring me up to see what my reaction would be," he joked.

The former teacher and lecturer, who lives in Alton, Hampshire, but is originally from Hull, described himself as "very internationally-minded".

He has 10 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren "scattered around Europe", including in Germany.

"You can't just walk away and expect it not to have any repercussions," Mr Weighton said of the UK's exit from the EU.

"It's not like resigning from a golf club because you don't like the secretary, it's more like a divorce with all of the heartache and recriminations that follow.

"However, you have to live with the way things are not the way you would like them to be."

He said he had lived a "varied life" and added the most "exciting part" was between the ages of 25 and 40, when he worked abroad teaching English to students in Taiwan.

He said "age is just a number" and he would be celebrating his birthday by having lunch with some members of his family, as well as another party with friends at his retirement home."

[Jah Womble]

Good on him - and at least, thanks to his endurance, the UK can for now be world leader in something.

There's always a significant level of doubt about longevity, however: between the fifties and seventies, most 'oldest-person' claims seemed to centre around the US and UK, but since then Japan has come to the fore as the home of long-life - which leads one to think that records elsewhere weren't perhaps as reliable until fairly recently. (The current oldest person is a Japanese woman who turned 117 in January.)

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Fascinating stuff that VA. And yes, JW, I think the record keeping bit must play a part. I'm sure I remember seeing something years ago about an old guy in Umbria or Provence or somewhere who had lived in a village his whole life and said he remembered when the first train came to town, when he was 5, which would have made him about 120 (at the time they interviewed him) but the interviewer remarked there were no records to prove his age.

[Balderdasha]

I went down a similar rabbit hole recently, investigating the claims that Jeanne Calment, the oldest ever documented woman at 122 years old, was actually a fraud.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.new...f-calment/amp/

[WOM]

To Bob's credit, he still looks like the Bob his friends would recognize and looks like he's eating solid foods. Some of these people you see on the news turning 100...105...110 look like Edvard Munch paintings or melting wax figures. He could probably get down to the pub for a pint if he wanted.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Yes, he looks to be in fantastically good nick and, judging from his comments, has still got all his marbles and in fact is rather articulate and thoughtful.

[Jah Womble]

...and, unlike many old-timers, worked out long ago that Brexit is complete cobblers.

I knew that Jeanne Calment's claim had been investigated, but thought that nothing to disprove the claim had been found?

[Various Artist]

No, I was rereading her Wikipedia page last night among many others, having come across a couple of references to the supposed doubt, and the suggestion of fraudulence seems to have been fairly thoroughly debunked.

It hinges on her daughter Yvonne, who died on her 36th birthday in 1934, having in fact survived and Jeanne died instead, whereupon Yvonne takes over her mother's identity for the rest of her life – and thus reached a 'mere' 99. Aside from anything, this means that she would have had to immediately start successfully impersonating a 59-year-old while in her mid-30s, and so on from there, while living in the same town where Jeanne had been known her whole life. Indeed, the fact that Jeanne came from 'good' Arles stock, her father had a position in local society, etc. accounts for the fact that her life is so much more heavily documented than most comparable claims.

The other main 'evidence' the fraud theory uses appears to be the suggestion that her age of 122 is such an outlier it's deeply improbable. And yes, the second-highest fully accepted age for anyone ever is 119 and until recently there was scarcely anyone accepted to have survived beyond 116 – but improbable does not equal impossible, by any means. And although there was a spell around 10-12 years ago when the oldest living person at any point tended to be 'only' around 113, what's noticeable if you look at the top 100 longest-lived ever page on Wikipedia is that all the most recent clutch of World's Oldest Person record-holders (and a bunch more kept in second, third place, etc. behind them) have been trending at around the 116-117 mark, such that over 40 of the up-to-date top 100 are people who either died in the last 5 years or who are still alive now. That is, the upper limits aren't quite as limiting as they seemed to be only a decade or so back, such that 122 is looking increasingly less freakish.

[ursus arctos]

The New Yorker just did a long piece on the controversy around Calment

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...ved-or-a-fraud

[Patrick Thistle]

...and, unlike many old-timers, worked out long ago that Brexit is complete cobblers.

I thought there was a distinction between the very elderly (who lived through WW2) who generally opposed Brexit, and the generation born just after the war who generally supported Brexit.

[Lang Spoon]

Indeed. Though my gran's sister is 91 and loving it (she's also an arch Unionist but).

[Various Artist]

To Bob's credit, he still looks like the Bob his friends would recognize and looks like he's eating solid foods. Some of these people you see on the news turning 100...105...110 look like Edvard Munch paintings or melting wax figures. He could probably get down to the pub for a pint if he wanted.

This is also a very fair point. Both he and Alf Smith (born the same day, mentioned above) looked to be in fine nick for their incredible age; Harry Patch similarly could have passed for a lot younger, for instance. Unfortunately Bob's predecessor as World's Oldest Man looked very much out of the 'Munch' school, though a happy sort with it – I came across a short video on YouTube only last week about him being named by Guinness as the record-holder, which of course by the nature of the beast tends to followed fairly swiftly by the news that the individual is now an ex-record-holder.

One thing that stuck in the mind from last night's wiki-wander was Violet Brown from Jamaica (March 1900–September 2017), who fell more into the 'well-preserved' camp and who became the first World's Oldest Person not to be born in the 1800s when she succeeded Emma Morano of Italy – and who had a son called Harland who, two days after his mother became the oldest person on the planet, himself turned 97 – making him likely the oldest person ever to have had a living parent. Rather heartbreakingly, two days after that he died, his mother outliving him by 5 months. According to an interviewer who spoke to them a while earlier he could've passed for 60-something, illustrating just how the slow-aging genes can get passed down.

Violet also came from the next parish in Trelawny to the Bolt family, one of those faintly surreal instances of record-breakers in two different fields (almost) crossing paths – Usain was apparently invited to an event she attended in 2016, but was off-island at the time. The really good example that I always think of comes from when I started keeping up irregularly with the lists of 'World's Oldest' c.2006, when Edna Parker of Indiana was on her way to becoming the record-holder (I think she was #2 at the time) and lived in the same retirement home as 51-year-old 7'7" Sandy Allen, the world's tallest woman, who had been in my Guinness Books of Records as such since I was a kid. The world's #5 oldest person at the time was also an Indianan, Bertha Fry, who had recently been introduced to Edna when they were respectively 113-and-a-few-months and 114, which set the all-time record for the highest combined age for a meeting of supercentenarians at a frankly mind-boggling 227 years and change.

[Various Artist]

I thought there was a distinction between the very elderly (who lived through WW2) who generally opposed Brexit, and the generation born just after the war who generally supported Brexit.

Quite, i.e. the distinction between those who actually went through and won the war, and knew just how important developing and maintaining fellowship with those from the Continent is, and those who grew up in the post-war era but think they won it.

I'm not sure the distinction is altogether clear-cut, though. My 90-year-old neighbour, who I've got on wonderfully with for the 9 or 10 years I've known her, said the other week something disparaging about continentals in general that I forget exactly, but was a blanket dismissal along the lines of "They're not like us, are they?". She at least acknowledged my unhappiness about Brexit happening but doesn't share it.

[Jah Womble]

I thought there was a distinction between the very elderly (who lived through WW2) who generally opposed Brexit, and the generation born just after the war who generally supported Brexit.

Yes, fair point. I’m probably guilty of generalising there.

Enjoying VA’s observations and factoids here. Somehow, I’m amused by the notion of these human record-holders inhabiting the same building - like some kind of living, breathing Guinness exhibition.

[Guy Profumo]

World's oldest man now in Hampshire. He was 12 when West Brom last won the league.

He is the "tough of the track" AICMTP

[Bored Of Education]

[QUOTE=Various Artist;n2255795]I went down a massive Wikipedia-and-associated-press-articles rabbit hole there, thanks Rogin. It's always fascinating to read about supercentenarians, not least because they all have wildly differing suggestions for the secrets of their extremely long life. Bob might just have hit on the definitive one, though:

He said the secret to his longevity was "to avoid dying".
/QUOTE]

Reminds me of Lemmy's answer to an interviewer's question, "How have you kept going?" - "We never gave up"