Live forever but don't get old.

We're not supposed to be getting old. We're all going to die of smoking or drinking or obesity and if we manage to get through all that a satellite will land on us, or the Earth will rise up and swallow us, or we're all going to melt, or polar bears and PETA-bred sharks will eat us, or something. The bottom line is, we're all going to die and soon.

And yet, all over the blogs today is the beginning of a new application of the anti-tobacco template. This time it's denormalising spare bedrooms. Live in a house the Righteous declare bigger than your needs? You must be made to feel shame and the mob must be turned against you. The Mail Mob has already started in the comments. Casualty departments will soon be full of people with overjerked knees. All that knee-jerking is costing the NHS money!

It's aimed at the elderly to start with, because they're easy targets, but it'll progress. It always does. Eating is now firmly into the 'for the cheeeldren' phase. This new denormalisation will follow exactly the same pattern and still the drones won't notice.

And yet, how can this be a problem if we're all going to die? How can there be a problem with an ageing population when we're all dropping in the street while lumps erupt all over us because of the terrible lifestyles we lead, lifestyles that must be corrected so we'll live longer even though that's causing problems? In fact, we're about to be able to live to 150. Imagine that - eighty or ninety years of hearing the whine of 'I'm paying for your pension'. Smoking is a better option, you then spend less time hearing the whine of 'I'm paying for your NHS treatment' from exactly the same people, none of whom realise that they aren't paying for any of it. Their money is paying, but that money was taken from them by force and they have no say in how it's spent..Explaining that to them is futile. Don't bother.

It doesn't matter how healthy you are if you can't afford heat. In fact, the less fat you have on you, the sooner you'll freeze to death. Perhaps that's the real reason behind the Government's insistence we all slim down. Makes us easier to kill off in the winter. That'll soon solve the pensions crisis and the 'costing me money' crowd won't mind at all... well, until they see the bill for Granny's funeral.

Can't complain though. No, seriously, you can't. If you talk too much about money and food, you're now a psychopath, and you'll be locked away and your home and property given away to the drones, to keep them voting the right way. Jamie Oliver had better watch his step. He talks of nothing else. Then again, he's also oblivious to the feelings of others and convinced that his way of life is the only right one, so there might be something in it after all.

Every cloud has a silver lining and when you're looking for ideas for a dystopian tale, the news is a rich seam these days. Knowing the template makes it easy to extrapolate those current reports into the future - although I'll have to write faster than the Righteous can move and they're getting pretty quick these days.

All of the above is not the product of weeks or months of writerly research. Not at all. All of those stories are in the current online issue of the Daily Mail. All of that is just one day's worth. Contradictions abound within the same issue but hardly anyone notices.

I'd better ramp up the writing rate. I already had State allocated housing in the story and they're catching up fast on that one. Next they'll...


No, better not say anything.