The War Against Senility

Recently on television, Andrew Denton has been hosting a programme called "Elders", for which he has chosen half a dozen people who, because they have been lucky enough to survive to a reasonably elderly age, are assumed to have acquired wisdom. As I look around me, I feel that there is not necessarily a correlation between AGE and WISDOM, and I might even go so far as to say this relationship is rare. As I age, I patiently wait to acquire my share of this scarce quality,but must admit that there is little evidence of onset, at this stage. Incidentally, I am far from being a fan of Andrew, but I must acknowledge that there are times when he does exhibit good interviewing skills.

One of his guests was the "Silver Bodgie", Bob Hawke, a former Prime Minister of Australia. There are many things that Bob and I would not agree on, but one of his statements I considered to be very wise. He felt that in order to combat the onset of Dementia or Altzeimer's Disease, one needs to constantly exercise the brain and challenge it with fresh information. I know there is no magic bullet for this problem, but it seems logical that the brain will respond more positively to fresh stimuli than to torpor and disuse. One of Bob's techniques is to solve two Cryptic Crosswords each day. I don't know whether his solving skills are better than mine, or he works on easier puzzles. I sometimes solve ONE in a day, with great celebration, though some may carry over for some days. I have several books of puzzles of varying difficulty to suit my current mood. For the maximum of difficulty and frustration, I think the ones that are collected from the British daily newspapers rank highly.

As we dodder on into our wisdom-filled twilight years, perhaps Bob and I will be able to compare the efficacy of the various types of puzzles available.