<em>"If sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are bad for us, why is Keith Richards still alive?"</em>

If everything is killing us, why do we live so long?
By Jeff Randall, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/03/31/ccjeff31.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/03/31/ixcoms.html" target="new">Daily Telegraph</a>


Is it me, or are we becoming two nations, a society where what occurs in one half of the country bears no relation to events in the other?

I'm talking not about the divide identified by Disraeli - that between rich and poor. Nor do I mean the gap between north and south, or even black and white. No, the contrast to which I refer is starker than that.

It's the split between Negative Britain, in which we appear to be under relentless attack from an increasing list of death-inducing ailments and Positive Britain, where life expectancy is rising at such a rapid rate that the pension system is on the brink of collapse.

Flick through the daily papers' news pages and it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that everything is killing us. But then turn to the personal finance sections and it seems that our pension funds are skint because nobody is dying.

How can this be? Are we dropping like flies or living for ever?
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Such questions nag away at me, after I spotted a feature in yesterday's Financial Times under the headline "Dangers of a good night's sleep".

Jeepers! Now even having a kip is a cause for concern.

Every day, it seems, new warnings of a looming health disaster emerge in Negative Britain. The scale of imperilment is truly spectacular.

Mass obesity, rampant anorexia, drug addiction, drug shortages, NHS super bugs, junk food, salt poisoning, sugar dependency, sexual diseases, sexual impotence.

Chronic stress, passive smoking, alcohol abuse, carbohydrate overload, the Atkins diet; too few vitamins, vitamin pollution, fruit deficiency, factory farming.

Insomnia, night starvation, vicious sun beds, mobile phones that fry our brains, carcinogenic wrinkle creams, E numbers and, according to Mary Creagh, MP for Wakefield, killer domestic baths with no thermostats.

Wow! Call me paranoid but living in this half of

the country feels like a stroll through a minefield in hobnail boots. I'm still in shock after reading on the internet that "Cheese is the Devil's Plaything".

It's a wonder that anyone makes it through to lunch.

I'd be tempted to stay in bed all day were it not for the risk of… too much sleep. Moving to Baghdad is probably a safer option, but I'm told that the beer there is not so good.

No wonder that UK health ministers have spent more than £50m on management consultants in the past six years. Dealing with all this must be giving Patricia Hewittless a headache.

That's Negative Britain for you. Now, hold my hand and we'll cross over to Positive Britain. It's a journey of only a few inches: the gap between your ears. There you go.

You're now in a very different place.

It's a happy scene, where far from being wiped out by avian flu, those on the back nine of life are heading for a golden age of independent activity, well past the biblical target of three score years and 10. Grey Power is on the march.

In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn British male was 56 years. By 2000, it had risen to 76 years. For women, it was even higher, 80 years. And since the turn of the millennium, life expectancy for both sexes in Positive Britain has improved further still.

Despite the range of illnesses, real and imaginary, in Negative Britain, about which public-safety warriors constantly remind us, the over-fifties in Positive Britain have never felt quite so fortified.

So why does one side have so many scares, when the other is in such good shape? The answer is, I suspect, a conspiracy, an unwitting alliance of private enterprise, lobby groups, a credulous media and a nanny state.

The next time you hear a story on BBC news or read a headline that claims, "Braeburn shock: thousands at risk from apple shortage", check out the source. The report invariably goes something like this:

"A new study today reveals that insufficient consumption of apples is creating possible dietary problems across the country. An investigation by the Kent Apple Growers' Collective shows that…"

You get the picture. Business groups, with a vested interest, commission research which reveals - surprise, surprise - that if we only bought more of what they're selling, we'd all be better off. Desperate news editors buy into "the crisis" and, the next thing you know, a pandemic of Apple Deprivation is sweeping the nation.

Another source of bogus fears is local councils, motivated either by crackpot political correctness or a genuine worry about being sued by ambulance-chasing lawyers.

Only this week, we learnt of the Yew Tree Danger Alert. No, I'm not making it up. A row of yew trees, next to a children's playground in Bristol, was pulled up in case the kids poisoned themselves by eating the leaves.

It's amazing. On one hand, nutritionists tell us that we need a government programme of food education because too many children won't eat salads, on the other a risk-assessment officer is warning that our kids are in danger of stuffing themselves with toxic foliage.

Try to imagine the conversation: "No burgers, chips and fizzy pop for me tonight, Mum, I've just tucked into a large portion of belladonna and toadstool mix". I don't think so.

As a fully paid-up hypochondriac, I decided long ago that residing in Negative Britain wasn't for me.

It was simply too depressing.

So, sustained by the thought that if sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are bad for us, why is Keith Richards still alive? I packed up my mental baggage and left for life on the other side.

Here, along with fellow members of the Saga generation, I look forward to confounding the actuaries and draining the pension system of its resources, way beyond the point where my contributions will have run out. Growing old disgracefully is a wonderful prospect.

Just as long as that deadly nightshade doesn't get me first.