So men may soon be living as long as women. That's not good news - unless you're a bridge player

Think carefully, men, before you preserve yourselves too well. Those extra years may be blighted by Alzheimer's disease or a living death in an institution

When my father died, my mother had left his hospital bedside for a short break and was playing bridge, with three widows. In those days Hove was chock-full of widows; my father was the last husband to go. The hospital rang with the grim news. "Now you know what it's like," said one of my mother's so-called friends. What an old witch. Perhaps widowhood had soured her. Luckily, things are changing - which is good news for men and widows.

In about 25 years' time, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), western men will be living as long as women, instead of pegging out about five years earlier. They could all be playing bridge together, if that's what turns them on.

Nobody is quite sure exactly why the final gender gap is closing. It could be because men's lives are not as dangerous as they used to be. Fewer of them go down mines, fight wars, go deep-sea fishing and think it's weedy to be poorly. More of them go to the gym, use moisturiser, eat salad and listen to the doctor.

Now that the old macho culture is losing its grip, some of them even make their own appointments.

Fielding is off to the surgery at the slightest twinge. Every mini-pain is a budding cancer, every cold is flu, too much drink over Christmas is terminal acid reflux - but hey, if it keeps him going as long as the wife, that has to be a good thing.

But here's the chilling news, from Professor Tony Warnes at the Sheffield Institute for Studies on Ageing. It's not just men living longer. It's also some women dying earlier. Treatment for heart disease and prostate cancer has improved, which benefits men, but fewer young women than men have given up smoking, because girls apparently want to stay thin and look cool. So that's more lung cancer for girls.

There is always a downside to every report - so think carefully, men, before you preserve yourselves too well. Quite apart from the added costs for taxpayers, is this really what you want? Remember the Struldbruggs in Gulliver's Travels, who lived forever and hated it. Those extra years may be blighted by Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, or a living death in an institution. Last week, two elderly ladies died of hypothermia in "care" homes. Another died after a fire in her room. And, according to the charity Counsel and Care, more than 60,000 elderly persons are now having to sell their homes each year to pay for these places. Welcome, chaps, to the twilight world.

Over the past few days, Rosemary has been longing to believe in God. She used to believe about 10 years ago, but I managed to talk her out of it, and now she's rather missing it. "So many glorious prayers," said she nostalgically, and started spouting George Herbert. "Love bade me enter ... blah blah ..." So to make her feel a bit better, we walked round the block with the dogs singing our favourite hymns: To be a Pilgrim, Immortal Invisible, For Those In Peril On The Sea. "How do you know those?" asked Rosemary. "You're Jewish." Because I used to teach music in schools and had to play hymns in assemblies.

But what has brought on Rosemary's crisis? I blame Darwin's bicentenary and the media. And the 800 atheist buses saying, "There's probably no God ..." and the religious buses saying, "Yes there is a God", and the nurse who kept offering to pray for patients, readers praying for columnists, a Channel 4 series on Christianity, a debate on the Moral Maze - morals have to come from God. No they don't. Gordon's invited the Pope, but he won't come, the tabloids are ranting about militant atheists and persecuted Christians, and the Bible has just been translated into cockney rhyming slang.

This continuing debate is a mystery to me. I did worry about the logistics of it when I was little, and wondered how God could be everywhere at once, how big He would have to be to manage that, and how much of what part of Him would it take to cover Ruislip, Middlesex, where I lived. I reckoned one tiny fraction of His smallest toenail would probably do it. Then I realised that He wasn't there at all, forgot all about it, and now, more than half a century later, I'm still only allowed to say He's "probably" not there.

Imagine how disappointed I was to find that even Fielding says "probably". "I'm in the tradition of Wordsworth and Blake," said he rather poncily. "How can anyone not be an agnostic? Atheists are some of the most dismal and dogmatic people I've ever met." What a fool he is. But I mustn't lose my temper. Apparently there's a "growing wave of atheism sweeping the country", but according to AHS, now is the time for a new brand of "live-and-let-live" soft atheists.

It sounds a bit wet to me. I prefer Olivia's forthright style. A few years ago, she came round after a five-hour operation, shouting about lions and tigers that she'd recently seen on holiday in Kenya. But as the dreams cleared away, she saw a woman in a white fairy costume at the end of her hospital bed. Who could it be? Some left-over holiday magic? No. It was a female priest, offering help and prayer. "Sod off," shouted Olivia in a fury. And who can blame her, because a priest at the end of the bed after a big operation does not fill you with optimism, and the priestess should have known better than to presume.

Doesn't Rosemary think that priestess had a bit of a cheek? "It's difficult to talk to you about it; you deny that you have a soul."

This week Michele listened to Poetry Please on Radio 4, commemorating Adrian Mitchell, who died just before Christmas: "I never realised before just how powerful his poetry was - a brilliant mixture of fury, love and peace, and beautifully read by Adrian and friends. I cried most of the way through, and I wish he was still here."