The Icy Hand of Fate

There's nothing like being reminded of one's mortality, particularly on a wet Monday morning, as Mrs C and I surveyed our garden after torrential rain the night before. It is often thought preferable to adopt a more optimistic, life-affirming approach to the start of a new week. This is not the philosophy of the admen (or perhaps adwomen, let's call them adpeople and move on) who advise a well known price comparison website. (You know the one, Examine the Muskrat or something). Instead, they have clearly made a serious effort to get the "Non-Sequitur of the Year" award by sending me an email with the strapline "Get ready for a winter of fun" and following this with the remarkable statement

Make sure your life insurance is in place today so you can enjoy all the fun that winter will bring.

 I don't really need to be reminded to get ready for fun. Fun is the very essence of the Ramblings household's existence. It's non-stop fun from morning until late at night and we don't stop just because the first snowflakes are falling. Far from it. The moment the roads ice up, flights are cancelled and the A & E departments fill up with flu sufferers, we are out there, driving over black ice, chasing dogs across frozen lakes,  going out without a vest on and all the other madcap fun things one does in winter.

So it was timely, nay, helpful, to be reminded that one could enjoy all this fun even more with a bit of life insurance. Then it really wouldn't matter if we died screaming as the car skidded across the carriageway into an oncoming gas tanker, or we lay coughing up our lungs in an overcrowded ward where the medicine had run out because it was waiting to be cleared through customs (thanks, Brexit). We could die happy because someone else would inherit even more cash than they would have done anyway (assuming the life assurance company paid out - presumably they would have get-out clauses that exempted them from any payment if the death was our fault, and doing anything fun-like in winter probably counts).

I suppose what the adpeople wanted me to think was "'Ere, hold on a mo, I was going to attempt the North Face of the Eiger in winter (again)  but I won't really enjoy it, scrambling up the Hinterstoisser Traverse in a blizzard and rocks raining down, not unless I've put some life insurance in place. I'll just be worrying myself sick instead. I'll take out a policy. There, now I can break my neck and everything will be alright, nobody cares if I live or die provided I leave them something to spend".

It would have been far more helpful had the email said something like "Don't take any stupid risks this winter. Avoid dangerous winter sports, Wrap up warm. Drive carefully (if you have to drive at all) and let's all be here for the spring". But then I wouldn't have panicked and bought life insurance, would I?

Anyway, let assure my correspondents that I am absolutely ready for a winter of fun, just as ready as I would have been without their reminder, in fact. And I look forward to a spring of jollity, a summer of festivity and an autumn of unrivalled entertainment. So that's that.