Would you really want to know when you die?

The good news is that you can take preventative action and live longer.

The bad news is that there might not be much you can do, and if there is, you probably wouldn't bother to do it anyway.

Well we all know already what a generally healthy lifestyle involves - moderation in all things, plenty of exercise, fresh fruit and veg, no smoking and not too many burgers. But do we take any notice? Not much, not all the time. Or why would we be such a nation of overweight couch potatoes?

And those who do, often take it to extremes - like the woman sitting next to me in the pub last week who went on and on and on about low-fat spreads and her cholesterol reading until I realised she had no joy in her life at all and prolonging it would only extend her misery, so why bother?

The chances of a great many people drastically altering their lifestyles as a result of their genetic knowledge is going to be small. Far more likely that people will fret and worry themselves over things so much that their lives are more likely to be shortened rather than lengthened by their knowledge.

With both parents and all four grandparents dying from heart attacks/ strokes, I have a pretty idea of what my health inheritance involves.

On the other hand, I once walked out of our kitchen just as the tall Victorian chimney stack crashed through the roof and smashed the table where I'd been sitting a second before. Nothing about that in my gene map.

While we're worrying too much about the future, we're missing out on the present - and that could mean not noticing that car, bus or swaying chimney,

Life is for living while we can, not worrying about the end of the road - however good the map.

TWO-thirds of people in a recent survey have never met a farmer. Nine out of ten have no connection at all with farming.

Farmers' leaders are concerned, especially as many people in the survey also didn't have a clue about what crops are grown in this country or where our food comes from.

Well yes. It seems odd, and sad, that so many people should be so ignorant about such everyday matters.

On the other hand, I don't know many car production people or people who make fridges, toasters and televisions. Or which bits of those things come from home and abroad.

Most people don't meet their local councillors or MPs, probably don't know who the officials on their councils are. Yet these are the people running our everyday lives.

You can't get more vital than the water supply and sewerage system, but I don't know anybody involved in that either

And every day I pass lorries on the road from business and services that I simply have no clue about - usually involving the word "logistics".

It's shame that we don't know more about everything around us. Farmers have a point - but they're not the only ones whose work is unknown and undervalued.

Maybe farmers know exactly where every bit of their tractors, trailers, pick-ups, boots, overalls and equipment come from. But I wouldn't bet on it.

GREAT news from Iraq - Ali Ismail Abbas, the 12-year-old boy who in an attack by coalition forces had both his arms blown off, his family killed and his body hideously burnt - is in fighting mood.

He has refused to let journalists take any more pictures of him with his blistered body and bandaged stumps. Instead of being a focus of the world's pity, he is demanding action.

Every journalist who's spoke to him has promised that he will be flown to the West for treatment and now he wants to know when is it going to happen. Although a British charity, the Limbless Association, has money to fly him to London for hospital treatment, the Americans seem unwilling to grant permission for him to leave Baghdad.

Ali's refusal of any more photos is his way of exerting pressure, taking control of his own future. His spirit is remarkable and one of the best omens about the future of Iraq.

But let's hope that by the time you're reading this, our easy pity has been transformed into hard action.

A new tracking device - originally developed to monitor the movements of crocodiles - could help parents know exactly where their children are. Perhaps.

As teenagers have long had an inbuilt ability to tell parents that they are staying safely with friends, when, in fact, the whole gang of them is over the hills and far away on outings that their parents would most definitely not approve of, then they are definitely not going to be controlled by a tracking device.

Unlike crocodiles, children have the ability to undo gadgets, leave them lying round, fasten them to someone else's belt, leave them on the chair in the library...

After all, a monitor just tells you where the device is - not necessarily which child is wearing it.

Published: ??/??/2003