Don't worry, I'm just fine. I'm just a little achy and grumpy tonight and my thoughts turned to mortality in general. And I thought a little bit about my relationship with it and how I feel about being 45 next year.

And I was reminded of one of my favorite quotes about suicide. It was from the "99p Challenge" a British comedy panel quiz.

The challenge of that round was that the host, Sue Perkins, was about to jump off a building, and the panelist had to convince her not to.

And (paraphrasing here) her old partner Mel Giedroyc came back with a chipper: "Don't worry, Sue! You WILL die, I promise! You may just have to be a bit patient."

That's basically how I feel about death these days. I'm getting old. I'm tired. I'm quite unimpressed and disenchanted with the world at large. And I'm scared a lot of the time.

But the worst that can possibly happen between now and then is a lot of uncomfortable neurological static, all of which will be promptly rendered moot in my last moments.

So it's fine, really. There might come a day when I'm in so much pain that it's just not worth seeing what's next. But I'm not in any rush. Why bother chasing it, when it's already loping after me at a healthy pace?

It's not a comforting thought. It's a very... British thought. But it's stayed my hand more than once in times of despair.