"Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite..."

Spike Milligan kind of rocks. Just thought I'd put that out there.

It's such a brilliant thing to have on your tombstone. Many people are vaguely aware that he had "I told you I was ill" written on his headstone, fewer people are aware (I wasn't, until recently), that it's in Irish.

I've often said I wanted a Lewis Carroll quote on my tombstone/plaque/whatever, but I can't quite make up my mind which one. I'm always sorely tempted to go with "For the Snark was a Boojum, you see", but then it might be more fun to move further up the poem and just have "It's a Boo--!"

Not that it really matters, the odds are that I'll probably outlive anyone who could be bothered burying me.

For years now I've been a self-diagnosed hypochondriac. It's so much easier than actually believing you might be sick.

"On the one hand, if you put all of these 'niggling problems' together, they could add up to the symptoms of some kind of cardiomyopathy/bleeding ulcer/[insert ridiculously unlikely disease here]. On the other hand, I could be a delusional, attention-seeking whiner. If I have a cardiomyopathy/etc, I'll probably need to do things involving doctors, medications and life-style changes. If I'm just a hypochondriac, I can keep on as normal. Let's go with that option."

Saves loads of time, and I'm not dead yet, so it must be working well enough.

It does have a downside, though - I have, over the years, developed a relationship of mutual non-disclosure with my doctor. I never tell him anything unless it's been bothering me for a few months (like, say, 18). He says "how long has this been going on?" I say "a few months", he indicates that no one would have actually ignored something serious for several months and it's probably nothing. I then give him money. It's a bit daft, really, so I avoid it as much as possible.

Much easier to assume it's nothing in the first place and skip the bit where I pay someone to tell me as much.

So, I expect I'll either live to 106 (because I'm right about everything being nothing), or drop dead from some sort of complication due to ignoring pneumonia, or something.

Having said that, the next time I collapse for no apparent reason, ask them if my heart is beating normally for me, will you? If not, float the word "cardiomyopathy" around and see what happens. Just don't ask me, because I'll probably say it's nothing.

And, should I actually drop dead as a result of ignoring something I shouldn't have, let's go with the following epitaph: "Ma arvan, et ma peaks näinud seda tulemas"

(Or whatever the correct version of that might be).