David Aaronovitch

Readers may remember those spurious studies that used to claim men think about sex a ridiculous number of times a day. And I always used to wonder how they made their calculations. Was it like one of those hearing tests where you sit in a booth and press a button every time you think you detect a squeak?

Now 69, I would find it easier to answer the question ‘How often do you think about death?’ because a truthful response would be, ‘I practically never don’t think about it.’

Looking back, was there a moment when death overtook sex? Was it 25 years ago, when my father died? Or 12 years ago, when I very nearly bought the farm myself after a minor operation went horribly wrong? I lay in a hospital bed for a week after coming out of ICU aware of a sort of darkness that had collected in my peripheral vision. It’s never quite gone away.

The Grim Reaper always finds a way these days of inserting himself into my consciousness. Last Thursday I got together with three old friends for dinner in a swish restaurant. The first glass of wine was poured and Oliver pulled out a document and asked us, ‘Would you mind witnessing this? It’s my will.’

Recently YouTube’s algorithm god decided to cheer me up by recommending a US channel called In Memoriam, which – year by year – recalls the deaths of 30 or so famous people and the causes of their demise. I woke up several hours later having watched a dozen of its videos, transfixed by the fact that most of them died younger than I am now.

But then I can turn anything into death. I was playing with my adored two-year-old first grandchild the other day and suddenly there it was, the fugitive thought: ‘Will she remember me when I’m gone?’