Old age ain't for sissies

On Thursday, I read Chuck Norris was taken to hospital but was in good spirits and cracking jokes.

- Jennie Ridyard

By Friday, he was dead.

He was 86. Nowadays that's not exactly a ripe old age but it's certainly a good innings, and it seems he was a pretty healthy octogenarian, with a video from his birthday earlier this month featuring him lightly sparring, and then the legend spoke: “I don’t age, I level up,” Chuck said.

His lifespan wasn’t remarkable, but his healthspan - the number of years spent in good health - seems to have matched it. That is what we all hope for in old age: for our later years to be healthy ones as far as possible, and not to linger endlessly in pain.

It’s about quality over quantity.