Age and Perfection 1. Age I have just received in the post a form to apply to renew my driving license, in view of my approaching 70 th birthday. I know I’m getting old. There’s no need to rub it in. I also received my invitation for lung cancer screening. They are determined to find something wrong with me. I think I have mortality on my mind, as the other night I dreamed that my dad was still alive. He went to what the thriller writer Janet Evanovitch calls the Big Bacon Barbecue in Godland in 1989. While it was nice to see him again, it does suggest that my subconscious is a bit nervous. Not quite an age thing, a few weeks ago I was offered the opportunity to have a spring COVID vaccination. You don’t usually get this until after you hit the biblical use-by date, but because I had radical radiotherapy last year, I’m deemed to have potentially impaired immunity, so I get the jab at age 69. Yet another prize in the lottery of life. When ...