Life after death in the deep freeze

THE FRIDAY THING: SO how do you feel about turning yourself into an ice lolly? Maybe put in the freezer with a wooden pole up your bottom?

Three professors from Oxford University are doing exactly that (well, without the pole) so they can be deep frozen when they die and brought back to life when it suits them. Presumably they will have to choose in advance when that is...

It is an intriguing prospect at a time when people are looking for assisted death rather than prolonged life (if lying in the freezer next to last Sunday’s chicken lunch for years can really be much fun).

The mechanics of this lollification (I’m thinking of copyrighting that word) start when you have just died. Blood, packed with preservatives, is pumped into the body, which is then packed in ice.

Antifreeze is added to protect tissues and — grisly alert — if only the head is being preserved, it gets cut off. Though what good it would be on its own is anyone’s guess. You could still eat a lovely curry, but where would it go?

Nitrogen gas reduces the temperature quickly to -124C, and then it gets cooled some more, in fact to

-198C; enough for a cardy, even in Newcastle.

“As a head, my life would be limited,” says Anders Sandberg, one of the Oxford Dons involved (and we can only agree) , “but my hope is that my memories and personality could be downloaded into a computer.” That’s some hope.

For the privilege of being frozen to death the three intrepid Dons have each forked out £50,000 to an American company.

Next time you have a frozen fish finger, perhaps you should wonder just whose finger it might be....



FINAL WORD: I have never had any qualms about the observation of emails, texts and phone calls in an effort to halt extremist activity in the UK, and I don’t much mind that the American Prism system might have helped our super-watchers at GCHQ in Cheltenham to spot a peak in terrorist activity during the London Olympics.

As Prime Minister David Cameron put it, we are living in a dangerous world and anything that protects British citizens from these dangers should be welcomed by us all.

And it’s also one in the eye for Nick Clegg, which is never a bad thing.