Ming - reporting on the passing of an era

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/… Ming - reporting on the passing of an era

Ming the quahog clam, who has died aged 405, lived longer than any other creature known to man.

He was born – or, to be more accurate, grew from a larva – at the end of the reign of Elizabeth I.

Indeed, like people in old folks’ homes who think Harold Macmillan is still prime minister, he may have gone to his death at the hands of a dredging team under the impression that Good Queen Bess was still on the throne.

Not much information filters through to the ocean bed.

Ming slept (or huddled, or whatever clams do) through the Gunpowder Plot, the Glorious Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence, the defeat of Napoleon and the Battle of Britain.

On the other hand, he also missed the Plague, the Potato Famine, the carnage of the Great War and Celebrity Big Brother. There are advantages to being a clam.

2 Remarks

  1. Sharon, on Mon 29 Oct ’07:

    Can we find out what he used to have for breakfast?

  2. RW, on Thu 1 Nov ’07:

    Or what he drinks?

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