Superheroes!

Batman delivers a criminal to a police station in Bradford. Are superheroes real after all? 

This one didn’t keep his identity a secret for long. He revealed himself to be Stan Worby who had been watching a football match in fancy dress – why? – and his criminal was a friend of his who had decided to give himself up. Superheroes may be real but they’re not quite what they used to be. Good grief, Clark Kent managed to hide the fact that he was Superman for ages and ages. 

We in England are not quite the superheroes we thought we were anyway. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been shocked to find that the UK ranked 12th out of 19 countries of similar affluence in 2010 in terms of healthy life expectancy at birth, according to a detailed analysis from the Global Burden of Disease data collected by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) in Seattle. He can’t even blame it on his Labour Party predecessor either. 

It would seem that it’s not so much any failings on the part of the NHS but a general failure of UK lifestyle. We eat too much of all the wrong things. We have a boozy culture and we smoke too much. Consequently we can expect to live 68.6 years of healthy life. After that it’s all downhill: stroke, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and general decrepitude. I’d better make a start of really enjoying life in the years left to me. Bucket list time! 

Spain, on the other hand, is at the top of the list with 70.9 years of healthy life before the rot sets in. Italy came second with 70.2 years and Australia got the bronze medal with 70.1 years. Mind you, the difference is not really all that huge after all. 

You could put it down to the Mediterranean life style, I suppose, but that doesn’t account for the Aussies. Maybe it’s the outdoor life style. Spain still has its paseo and Italy the passeggiata. But Australia? Well, maybe it’s the barbie on the beach that swings it. I can quite believe it about the paseo and passeggiata, though. I’m sure that a relaxed stroll most days must help keep your system working properly. 

Then there’s the lunch hour. Many people in the UK just work through their lunch hour, which is usually a maximum of 45 minutes anyway. In Spain, by contrast, most people still either go home for lunch or go out to a proper sit-down meal in a restaurant, maybe only a small on with a cheap menú del día but still a meal in a restaurant, away from the work place. It’s the relaxing over food and enjoying your meal that makes the difference. 

That might all change soon however. There are moves afoot to bring Spain back into line with the rest of Europe and reduce the lunch hour. Will it make a difference? 

We seem to be doing better on one front though: the royal family. King Juan Carlos is recovering in hospital from his fourth operation in 10 months. Queen Elizabeth has just left hospital after her first admission in 10 years. The Borbón family appear to be staggering form crisis to crisis whereas the Windsors are on a high at the moment. 

Will things change in the near future? Not even Batman can tell us that.