the sleep of the dead...

Amongst the many things at which I’m absolute rubbish, sleeping would have to be right near the top of my personal tip. Between the hours spent tossing from side to side or staring at the ceiling mentally subtracting the amount of time it’s taking me to fall asleep from the total amount of time available for the purpose, the half-hourly awakenings, the Stephen King-directed dream sequences and the early risings, I get about 3 hours of useful slumber per night.
Given the general perception that too much sleep is never enough, or that getting the same amount of sleep as a tree-sloth seems to account for the youthful good looks of every supermodel ever questioned about the reasons for their stunning appearance, I decided to Google the subject and see whether I was at any kind of risk.
Well, along with all the dire warnings about this and that, I came across a very interesting statistic; 74% of all people who die do so in their sleep.
Not only that but 60% of all those fatalities occur between the hours of 4-00am and 6-00am, when the body’s most vital functions are at their lowest operating capacity.
DO YOU PEOPLE REALISE WHAT I’M SAYING ??
Sleeping is a very, very, very dangerous business!!!
How many other supposedly healthy, essential activities have a 74% mortality rate??
None…that’s how many.
So, in the light of this terrifying data, I will resume my nightly bouts of insomnia, with the added protection of a wake-up call at 4-00am each morning just to ensure that I’m vigilant during the most potentially lethal part of the day.
The way I see it, by keeping my sleep to the barest of minimums and avoiding the twin, deadly peak hours, I may not live to be 175 years old…but it’ll fucking well seem like it…

i wouldn't be caught dead doing that...

Death is rarely a subject that generates the laughter on a grand scale, which is a shame, as it’s in plentiful supply (er death that is…not laughter…). And karmically speaking, I certainly don’t want to anger the gods of mortality by making fun of anyone’s specific demise, however…
There was something just a touch tragicomical about Richard Carlton, famous for his dislike of the media-circus but once again right there in the thick of the whole frenzied pack, asking his last ‘difficult’ question at the Beaconsfield mine moments before staggering off-camera to collapse and expire.
My sympathy goes out to Carlton’s family/friends; at least as much as I can muster considering they are complete strangers and the man did have a chronic heart-condition. I tend to save the real, heartfelt sympathy for strangers like the Delezio family, especially when my compassion is in such short supply to begin with.
It wasn’t so much Carlton’s death that I found amusing but rather the number of people falling over themselves to trot out that well-worn cliché; that ‘Carlton died doing what he loved doing most…reporting the news’.
It got me wondering whether I’d like to go out doing what I love the most??
And despite what many of you are thinking right this second…that is NOT what I like doing the most, you sick fucks.
Strangely, it WAS what Michael Hutchence loved doing the most, although not many of his friends or family, upon hearing that he’d been found hanging from a hotel door-knob with a jar of Vaseline and a selection of pornographic magazines by his side, ever said ‘Michael died doing what he loved doing most…jerking off’.
How about you??
If you had to go, would you like to go doing what you loved doing the most…