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| Copenhagen climate summit: Gordon Brown says 'future of humanity' at stake Gordon Brown has arrived at the summit promising to make a "final push" for a global deal on cutting carbon emissions. telegraph.co.uk |
American Activist Enters North Korea Human rights activists say Robert Park crossed into N. Korea Friday to urge leader Kim Jong Il to repent www1.voanews.com |
Sri Lankan leaders woo Tamils for decisive votes COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) -- Just months after winning Sri Lanka's brutal civil war, the president and the former army chief are locked in a bitter election that has forced them to woo the very Tamils they are accused of recently pounding with airstrikes and artillery fire.... hosted.ap.org |
Israeli Medical and Rescue Teams Arrive in Haiti 220-member Israeli delegation includes 40 doctors, 24 nurses who will set up field hospital that can treat 500 people a day www1.voanews.com |
Martin Amis: Ageing provocateur | Joan Brady As a award-winning writer in my 70s, I find Martin Amis's attack on 'worthless' old people as vile as any racismAs a writer who's just turned 70, I have to admit that Martin Amis has riled me with his remarks in the Sunday Times about euthanasia and what he sees as the worthlessness of old people. It's not just that he is suggesting that at my age I can or should no longer carry out my profession. He also seems to be casting doubt on my right to be alive at all.Ageism seems to me almost indistinguishable from racism, a point that couldn't be made clearer than he makes himself: old people are "like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops". That's what racists say about anybody with a different skin colour or an alien headdress: "They stink." True, there is such a thing as a smell of death. I know it all too well – I nursed my husband through a long and terrible illness – and very ill people of any age tend to stink of it, young ones as well as old ones. But people that are sick, no matter what their age, aren't eating out in restaurants and cafes or buying tufted carpets at Habitat.Ageists also tend to say the old are stupid. Here's Amis again: "Talent dies before the body." But what about the poet John Keats or the cellist Jacqueline du Pré? Their bodies gave out way before their talents. In my own field there are and have been many prose writers writing well past their 70s and into their 80s, some of whom have had a falling away of their talent, but many of whom, like one of Amis's heroes, Philip Roth, now 76, come roaring back. Lots of people go through bad periods at all kinds of ages. Lots of elderly writers are very productive and at the peak of form: PD James (89) and Ruth Rendell (79) come to mind at once.Which brings me to the question: Should people be allowed to work when they're older? Of course they should. It's idiotic to pension off people just because of age. True, some people do need pensioning off. Some of them need it at 40, some at 50. Some should never have been employed at all. And some should definitely be kept on at 70 or 80, especially now with the old skills in decline: writing readable sentences, manipulating basic Âmathematics, everyday diplomacy in interpersonal relationships.It's health that matters, not age. What people are capable of at any age depends partly on that and partly on luck. Some aren't ever good at anything. Some lose their capacity early. Some don't. But everybody who lives gets old.I remember Shirley MacLaine on the box talking to an interviewer about it. "You think it's not going to happen to you," she said, shaking her finger at the grinning younger man in the chair opposite her. "You just wait. It is going to happen." He didn't believe her. But by now, he's probably as old as Amis. I'm not saying it's pleasant to get old, to sense the edge coming closer, to know the body is weaker, the energy levels lower. But that's true of many athletes who have to retire at 30, crippled with arthritis. And many of the very old remain fit and well.To get personal about it, I've just turned 70, and my new book is a thriller called Venom, not exactly an old lady's kind of thing. I wrote it under difficult circumstances. I have a hereditary heart condition that flared up and called for major surgery. That was two years ago and I feel stronger than ever. I do Pilates and I box to keep fit and, to tell you the truth, my writing is better as a result.One of God's nastiest tricks is that often people don't realise they're getting old. My brother-in-law caught sight of an ancient man in a shop window and thought, "Jesus, look at that poor old fool". Then he realised that old man was himself. And here's Amis, talking like a callow teenager, who sees the old as a smelly, ugly invasion, blissfully unaware that he's already one of them.Martin AmisWelfareAgeingOlder peopleLong-term careAssisted suicideRuth RendellPD JamesJohn KeatsJoan Bradyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |