"Why Do Women Live Longer Than Men..."

...was the title of a text I did in an English course with a class of business people this morning. It seems to be a generalisation with a lot of truth in it. I remember my dad pointing this out in his own inimitable way.

"You won't get me going to any of those bloody pensioners' dance afternoons...they are full of auld women dancing with each other because their husbands have already snuffed it! I'd be the only bloke and I'd end up having to dance the whole bloody afternoon"

In the group we talked - in stilted but acceptable English - about the possible reasons; stress or lack of it, drinking, diet, etc.. and thinking about diet it suddenly occurred to me that it would probably be possible tell the sex of a person by what they have in their shopping bag after going round the supermarket. I put it to the group and apart from one guy who after telling us what he normally bought said, "so, I musst be a voman!" - we agreed that it might well be so.

There is a distinct difference if I have been shopping or if the T-M has been. Her bag tends to have a somewhat higher proportion of vitamin C, less alcohol and more natural branny, grainy sorts of things than mine. If I have been it tends to be all fish and meat in batter, pizza, beer and wine and surprisingly often a big bag of potato crisps which I always swear I didn't put in the bag.

I put all that down to the vestiges of the hunter/gatherer dichotomy.

I also normally get moaned at for not getting enough (ok...not getting any) fruit or veg...and this I put down to the fact that fruit&veg always comes at the start when you first go in the shop and I want to get on my way a bit before I stop.

But as for who lives longer and so on, my dad also always used to say, "life depends on the liver"...well, I think my liver's ok for a while.