The old story

Here's the thought for today: scientists have calculated that in each glass of water we drink, at least one molecule has passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell.

I am indebted to Professor Richard Dawkins for this piece of fascinating, if slightly alarming, information in The Enemies Of Reason. In the second part, he worries that science is treated with suspicion while superstitious alternative medicines are taken as gospel.

The arguments he presents in The Irrational Health Service provide much subject for debate, although I reckon neither he nor those who advocate alternative medicine are likely to change their opinions as a result.

He certainly won't accept unproven treatments that haven't undergone proper trials. Dawkins has no sympathy for those who talk of deep knowing, psychic energy, energised crystals and angels hovering on your shoulder.

"How many have I got?" he asks an angel watcher.

"Have you asked any angels to come close to you?" she inquires.

"No," he tells her.

"So you don't have any," she informs him, bringing a pointless conversation to an end.

Phrases like mumbo-jumbo and superstitious nonsense pass his lips as he trawls through alternative medicine. And he's outraged at the NHS giving £10m (that's 500 nurses' salaries) towards the refurbishment of the Royal Homeopathic Hospital.

The participants in The Oldest People In The World are just glad to be alive. Well, most of them. Charlotte, at 110 the second oldest woman in Britain, isn't sure it's such a good thing. She's outlived both her children and resides in a care home in Yorkshire.

Ninety "is long enough", she says but recognises that "He doesn't want me up there". Relatives of the oldest living person in the world, Emma, in Connecticut, also feel that "God wants her to be here".

Four days after being filmed on her 114th birthday party, He changed His mind and Emma died.

A documentary like this can't help but make you wonder how you'll face old age, or whether you even want to. The prospect of a life stuck in a chair in a care home isn't appealing, and then you see the still-independent Gracie and Sidney.

She's 105, never been married and takes herself out to lunch every day. She's had a hard life in many ways, causing her to say that "the best part of my life is now".

Sidney, 101, has lived in the same house for the past 75 years. His family don't want him to live alone. "I reckon I've only got two or three years, so is it worthwhile?" he asks.

Buster, now 100, has been smoking and drinking all his life. He still works a few hours each day servicing vans and has retained his sense of humour. What's the slice of orange doing floating in his pint of beer, he's asked. "I'm getting vitamin C all the time," he says, smiling mischievously.

Some exist on their memories. Like 110-year-old Florrie, the oldest woman in Britain. She can recall, when prompted, Queen Victoria waving to her on a royal visit to Leeds.

Trips to Portugal, Calfornia and Japan (with the highest concentration of 100-year-olds in the world living in Okinawa) fail to find a conclusive answer to the question: why have you lived so long?

Grace reckons it's because she never had a husband. Henry, at 110 the oldest man in Britain, feels a sense of humour keeps you young. Muriel likes a drink, a sherry before lunch and another in the evening.

At 102, Marge works out every morning. Have you heard the saying "attitude is 90 per cent and circumstances are ten per cent," she asks when quizzed about keeping young.

"And you have to clean your teeth three times a day. I have all my own teeth, I want you to know," she adds.

Then there's "Rosie" who, despite the name, is a man. A 101-year-old still performing as a singer at socials in Arizona.

"Is he still having sex?," wonders a younger observer. On learning that perhaps Rosie is, he smiles. "That's given me something to live for," he says.