Apparently, if you have a hobby like knitting, quilting, or playing a computer game, it can delay the onset of … whatever it was. You know, thingy. According to this new report. Yesterday. Or maybe the day before. Anyway, who cares?
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
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Knit Your Way To Mental Health
- Date:
- Wednesday, 18 Feb ruary 2009 - 16:12 UTC
Apart from that, though, I do remember a report we published a few years back, you know, the other day, at least, it was after the Cuban Missile Crisis, saying how that after the age of 40 cognitive decline really gets going, it girds up its … girds up its … well, whatever it is that it girds, whatever ‘girds’ means, and doesn’t spare the horses. Loins. That was it. Loins. Not ‘lions’, loins. Pork chops for supper? Lovely. Don’t mind if I do.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, it was published in that journal I work for, the one beginning with N – but I can’t remember precisely when it was, who it was by, or the title, and as our archive search system is even worse at memory retrieval than I am (it keeps asking me if I want to search the Journal of Neuropsychiatric Impotence – perhaps it knows something I don’t?) I’m afraid I can’t recall it for you right now.
Anyhow, it all makes sense really, in terms of life-history strategy. That after one has gotten one’s leg over, preferably with some New British Hottie called Tiffany (I leaned that from Noah Gray’s Anatomy, you know) and done one’s bit for the replacement of the species, and the most one can do is stay awake as far as the weather forecast, if not Newsnight (and watching TV will probably accelerate that … thingy … Al’s Hymies? Hymie’s what? He left his golf clubs here? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.) Ah, I remember I once went out with a girl called Tiffany. Tiffany Lampshade. But that was before I met Virginia Water, and then …
But back to life-history strategy. After reproduction, natural selection, which was discovered in Godalming by Wallace and Gromit, says that you’re not needed any more, so you may as well fall to bits, but being British, we should endeavour to fall to bits with as much grace as one can and not draw too much attention to oneself. What’s that down the front of my cardie? God knows. Stop interrupting. I like to think of the human body in terms of my ageing Volvo, Caroline. Thirteen years, 120,000 on the clock, but still gets from A to B, albeit far more slowly than other motorists would like, despite having no functioning aircon and a man-eating glovebox that slammed shut on my in-car CD collection, never to be opened again, which means that all I can get on the wireless is Radio 4 and Rapture of the Deep by Deep Purple. I used to like Radio 4. Especially that Fi Glover. What a sexy voice. Phew.
But the main thing about … you know, whatever it was … when you start to approach 40 from the Other Side, is that you can’t remember names. Names of people, even people you’ve known all your life.
There I was, in the office of wherever it is I work these days, and one of my colleagues of similar vintage to myself asked me if I could bring to mind the name of a certain referee. The funny thing was, we both knew of whom we were speaking, could remember their papers, what they looked like, when we’d met them, everything. Only the name eluded us.
It all reminded me of a tale my father told me. At least, I think it was my father. It could have been my osteopath. A middle-aged man calls his friend on the phone one morning. “We went out to that fabulous new restaurant last night. The one that’s just opened in town,” he says. “You really should try it.”
“Great,” says his friend. “We’re always up for something new. Can you remember what it was called?”
“Yes,” says the first man. “It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Damn. Flower. Red petals, thorns, green leaves…”
“Rose?”
“Thanks a lot! Rose, can you remember the name of that restaurant we went to last night?”
And do you remember where this bus is headed, by the way?
Last updated: Wednesday, 18 Feb 2009 - 16:12 UTC
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Comments
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Those who had during middle age been busy reading, playing games or engaging in craft hobbies like patchworking or knitting were found to have a 40% reduced risk of memory impairment
AhHAAA! Crocheted marine invertebrates are more than just a pretty rhinophore. Or tubercle. Or tentacle.
Also, I read the other day in some newspaper or so, that if you take this, ah stuff, you known, then you have better whats-it-called, like, well, you know what I mean, no? After all, it’s science.
I find you mask the effects of whatsit by simply replacing all definite nouns with metasytactical wossnames, variables. [Apologies to Pterry]
I tell my students at the beginning of term that I won’t remember their names. I have, I say, only two children, of different genders and ages, and I get their names confused. At the end of the semester, at least six students come up to me and say “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
I’m sorry – do I know you?
I think Descartes had the right idea. Doubt everything. Know nothing.
My wife took up knitting about the same time she started working on a prominent neurology journal. Woolcraft and neurodegenerative diseases were linked in this household long before that paper.