I was reminded twice this week of the cycle of life

I RECEIVED a couple of reminders of mortality this week. The first was a freakish separation of my bicycle from its handlebars and the separation of me from the bike.

Handlebars are one of those things I take for granted — like slippers and toast. I cannot imagine them behaving out of the ordinary, but, a few days ago, a pair of handlebars defied a three-line whip and split from the rest of the ‘bicycle party’.

One skinned knee and bruised ego later, I was contemplating the perfidy of fate and handlebars, and what a fierce handy yoke a bicycle helmet is. The other reminder of the finiteness of this mortal coil was that everyone was talking about pensions: Waterford Crystal workers, the OECD, the pensions timebomb (as if old people are dangerous). I turn 35 tomorrow (no, there’s no need for anything extravagant, maybe a card ... or a pension), an age when a getting-less-young man’s thoughts pretend he’ll never need a pension.