Immortality - Will it last?

I was sitting here the other night contemplating my navels and started pondering on immortality. 'This'll never last' I thought, but here I am still cogitating. Perhaps that's the secret of immortality? You spend all your time thinking about it?

Anyway, it all started because I had this idea of printing out all of my blog posts. I've spoken before about why I write them: partly for my own enjoyment, partly because they seem to be appreciated by a sadly unenlightened few and partly because I think I may be interested to read them in years to come. Egocentrically, it has also occurred to me that future generations of Bassett might just be intrigued enough to read about great (times x) grandfather Graham, his thoughts, his devils and his life.

Trying to establish the mechanics of printing the blogs in the most efficient and aesthetic way was the first criterion. I experimented with various methods of transferring them to Word, printing them direct from the web page and searching for software but it was all rather cumbersome, time-consuming and, quite frankly, a pain in the butt. Then, of course, the printer started playing up! Cue frantic changes of ink cartridges, cleaning print head (with vodka!) and a whole gamut of threats, bribes and entreaties. It's now sitting there in the corner, face blue with embarrassment (see, told you it was screwed up) and sulking as I mentioned the L word (as in L for laser).

Then I found the answer: a lovely company called BookSmart. Basically, you download their software which connects to Blogger and turns your blogs into a book! It's totally editable and fully controllable so you can do whatever you like with it until you're happy with the layout, pictures, fonts etc. Once there, you upload it to them and Hey Presto!, 10 days later you have a properly printed book, complete with colour pictures, index, all the traditional attributes of a real, grown-up book.

Price wise they are really good, with 120 pages of semi-gloss A4 and a softback for about £11 or a pukka hardback version with dust jacket for a few quid more. You even design the cover with whatsoever you wish!

It seems too good to be true but Googling has produced favourable comment about them so it could be a goer. You even get a discount for buying 10 or more so I could inflict them as presents on people I really don't like. More likely, I shall just leave them nonchalantly lying around Bassett Towers. I could even arrange a book signing at Scummerfields, not that many there can read.

As I've wittered on about before, people of supposed intellect have said I ought to publish some of my other poems, writings etc so I could do them as well and become a published book author at long last. All I need to do is get one sucker to buy it and I'm a professional!! Woohoo, watch out JK Rowling.

Anyway, back to this immortality thing. Take my Dad for instance - an ordinary guy but, if I hadn't got my own kids, in a few short years his memory would be gone to the world. Doubtless, in a generation or two he will never be mentioned and totally forgotten - a life will disappear into an abyss of inconsequence.

We immortalise people for all sorts of reasons. Stephen Fry has a thing about Pliny the Elder (I'd be really pissed off if I was Pliny the Younger) but, without Googling, what did Pliny say or do? His name lives on but with an unknown reason. Clever people, evil people, notorious people.......they all achieve immortality. The last 90 odd years have seen us archive a massive amount of data via TV, movie and the internet but even this so-called immortality will be diluted as the centuries pass and more archives are created.

Am I making sense? Take entrepreneurs for example; off the top of my head I can think of Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and Bill Gates. All names that come to mind without too much effort. Now, jump forward 200 years and the list will be much longer and those three certainly won't be top of the list thus diluting their so-called 'immortality'.

Of course, I realise that in the year 3008 there will be a National Bertie Day with the streets decked in lime-green as my true genius will, by then, be recognised. No doubt, certain other things will still be the same as now:

Groups of people huddled shivering in the acid rain with cigarettes - a sure sign that there is a pub nearby.

Big Brother featuring a transvestite Venusian, a dyslexic decapod from the planet Betelgeuse and George Galloway (cryogenically reactivated).

Bugger all on TV

England losing their cricket matches

The integrity of politicians

Carol bloody Vorderman

Oh well, I suppose the good thing about this immortality thing is that the subject will be the last person to worry about it. Immortality? Huh, it's merely a passing fad.

"We have all eternity to celebrate our victories, but only one short hour before sunset in which to win them." Robert Moffatt (1795-1883)