When I'm sixty-four

Terry Pratchett who, as I'm sure you all know, is one of the world's most prolific and successful authors, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's a few months ago. This week he was in the news for donating half a million of our Great British Pounds for research into this evil condition. Despite being not quite 60 years old already his motor skills are waning - from being a proficient touch-typist he's now reduced to the sort of two-finger pecking that's my own claim to keyboard proficiency; I don't want to try to imagine the rage and frustration and fear that he and his family are going through.

He says that Alzheimer's disease lacks the heroic glamour of cancer and subsequently receives far less funding, and I think I've worked out why this is. Cancer, you see, can strike down anyone at any age. Babies and angelic innocent children develop the condition and everyone says how terribly unfair it is. Mothers develop the condition and people say how noble they are, battling against it, and fundraise to support their families, soon to be without a parent. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the actions wholeheartedly. But Alzheimer's strikes at the elderly - not cute innocent children or people in the prime of life, but individuals who're nearing the end of their lives - and I suggest that this is the sole reason that Alzheimer's is largely ignored. Let's face it, in today's youth-orientated world, old age and the attendant indignities just aren't 'sexy'. This living death happens to the people who Society has written off anyway.

So all power to Mr P! May he continue to simultaneously keep this tragedy in the glare of publicity whilst carrying on bringing enormous pleasure to the many millions of us for whom his alternative world is more real that the one we live in, for as long as is humanly possible.

Oook!