Cheers, Big Ears

Some clever scientists have mooted that life expectancy, by the year 2100, may be somewhere in the region of 292 years due to increasingly convenient lifestyles and advances in modern medicine.

Impressive though this may be, it’s worth reminding people of one of the quirks of the human body – that ears continue to grow throughout an individual’s lifetime. I have a nightmarish vision of the future in which armies of centenarians, each with giant ears like fleshy satellite dishes flapping in the breeze patrol the High Streets of the nation, lobes dragging on the ground, tutting at the activities of teenagers.

Oxfam shops would become impossible to navigate and they’d have to widen the pavements in places like Eastbourne. Or maybe coastal living would ultimately become too hazardous as their fragile bodies and huge lugs would prove particularly susceptible to onshore winds. They may all have to move inland, with towns like Reading becoming places of refuge for the elderly.

Maybe immortality isn’t such a great idea after all as, by definition, the size of an individual’s ears would therefore be infinite. Mind you, it never seemed to affect that Highlander fella.