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Send in the Clones

Age is finally getting the better of me - I can feel my slightly skeletal body winding down towards the inexorable fate of us all - death.

I've had to give up aerobics (shame about that, lycra feels wonderful), rollerblading and, only last week, doing wheelies in the 'chair around the old folks' home.

So, while the day goes by quickly - watching TV game shows and infommercials - every so often the mind does wander back to when I was fit and outwardly mobile.

Is there a way to reverse time? Well, some whacko doctors from Italy reckon they can clone human babies by implanting a bloke's cells into an egg and plonking them into a woman's tum to grow.

The little one would look like the dad (so few do these days), in fact they would be identical.

Now without being immodest I can just see the way heads would turn if yours truly was cloned. My new self would be down at the beach in speedos, tanning myself silly and fending off the babes. Apparently, sunshine does work wonders on bed sores.

Anyway, now I come to think of it, maybe this cloning thing isn't so bad. Imagine all the wonderful people we could bring back on to earth just by getting a few cell scrapings from them.

Mozart, Schubert, Da Vinci, Florence Nightingale, Fred Hollows or Victor Chang. Marvellous contributors to the world.

The only drawback to cloning that I can see, apart from the extreme risk of completely ruining nature, genetics and the time continuum of the universe, is that we could see some undesirables back on Earth.

People so terrible that the dangers of their rebirth would be almost too hard to comprehend.

How about having a little Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or (horrors) Liberace next door? No thanks very much Dr Clonio.

Oh Lord, I've just worked out who's financing him and his mad quest. It has to be ... Senor Christophero Skase. Don't laugh, did anyone see his body?

If there is something that has really got up your nose, let Grumpy Old Coot know at grumpy@webwombat.com