What’s bad news for undertakers is good news for the rest of us. And the good news for the rest of us is that, in the words of the Guardian,
Less of us are dying than at any time since mortality data was collected.
Good news for the rest of us, but rotten news for grammarians, whose binoculars are trained on this blog. ‘Less’ should read ‘fewer’.
Or more optimistically still:
More of us are not dying than at any time since records began.
That aside, last year’s mortality figures, now out, reveal that a mere 484,367 deaths were registered in England and Wales, 1.8% down on 2010. In a nation with an oversupply of undertakers, that spells hard times for the Dismal Trade, which is likely to experience a climbing mortality rate as the weakest go to the wall.
More to the point, it shows that a lot of people are getting clean away with it, and I hope that puts a hopeful spring in your step.
So, what are other people dying of?
Apart from the usual suspects, 5 died from falling off a cliff and no one died from rat bite. 51 men and just 1 woman died from falling off a ladder.
Get the full stats here.
And remember: it needn’t be you!
Ignoring the suicidal tendencies conferred on us by bad grammar from, of all people, those whose profession is language, this just goes to prove what I’ve always maintained; that 100% of living people have not died, so that, as the population continues exponentially to increase until there are more living than dead, it will be the exception rather than the rule to die, and our race will be mathematically immortal.
Then what on earth will we do with all those sympathy cards?