Notebook #6: Assisted dying, Redgauntlet, English Teacher

I've been busy. Well, busy, for a slacker like me

To be or not to be

Angel with skull in Greyfriars Kirkyard, Edinburgh. Credit: The Jaggy Thistle

The problem with semi-retirement is how you define semi. My preferred definition is doing nothing most of the time. My ideal day is taken up with what I call “just pottering around”. An hour’s walk while listening to music. An overpriced macchiato. Forty pages of a book. Some snark on Twitter. A clatter in the kitchen to improvise tea. In bed before Newsnight.

So why have I spent the past few weeks haring around like a toddler who has overdosed on blue Smarties? Dunno. Poor diary management, I guess. But these were engagements I was not going to turn down.

I love doing events at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which is Scotland’s national academy. But the massed intellects in the room can be daunting. Usually I bring down the average IQ by at least 10 points.

This time I was chairing a discourse on assisted dying. Note, a discourse not a debate. The RSE was insistent on this. Assisted dying is a subject where feelings run high. A lot of thought had gone in to ensuring the event illuminated the national discussion rather than taking a side.