As someone fortunate to be on the cusp of a seventh decade, it’s not often I sense the icy spectre of mortality. But posterity, familial and cultural, really matters now

In the treacherous depths of middle age, bits of your mortal frame invariably crumble.

My lower right molar, saved by root canal surgery days after I turned 50, finally disintegrated eight years later. The dentist organising a prosthetic replacement assured me: “We guarantee the tooth for 25 years. That should pretty much see you through!’’

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