Retiring in style.

photo Peter Paul van Dljk/cl

I saw Gervais again yesterday – if you have read any of these pages you may recall that Gervais is a beatnik pretending to be a rocket scientist who I sometimes get to help with his English and he helps me with my plans to become a millionaire.

Clearly we are both doomed to failure.

Whilst we were discussing the importance of demonstrating on the streets against the French Governments plans for retirement and pensions – which we can sum up as don’t pay and don’t let anyone stop working – Gervais pointed out that there were six people spending 500 days locked in a box as part of an experiment somewhere in Germany.

I don’t remember the exact link with retirement plans, but conversations with Gervais are often like this – I blame his teachers whoever they are.

The experiment is named Mars 500 and not knowing whether to believe Gervais or not, I checked on Wikipedia and apparently it’s true.

Although the box is not in Germany but somewhere in Russia. Then again, if you are locked inside a box for 500 days I guess it could really be anywhere.

Apparently the experiment is designed to simulate the confinement any future astronauts would have to suffer on their way to the planet Mars.

All I can think is how disappointed the volunteers are going to be when they finally get out of the box and discover they are still in the same warehouse on earth from where they started their 500 days.

I’m not sure that I could cope with 500 days locked inside a box with anyone but the thought that at the end I would step out onto a distant un-stepped upon planet would certainly help me hang on in there.

I told Gervais that I didn’t think I would like to volunteer for such a project but that I had seen in the newspaper a request for volunteers for a weightlessness experiment that basically involved staying in bed for a very long time.

I think you also had to have your feet higher than your head.

The experiments are taking part somewhere near here because I read about it in the local paper – and of course Gervais knew all about it.

Apparently I was too old to take part.

Thanks a lot, Gervais.

Of course my teenage son would have been an ideal volunteer as he has being doing just this for a few years now and I’m sure the pay being offered – which was quite substantial – would have been interesting.

Gervais told me a nice story about the experiments.

Apparently the volunteers are all wired up with sensors to check heart, blood, this, that, the other things and those.

One day they found some really weird readings on one of the volunteers, indicating abnormal activities, and so the researches tried to understand what had happened.

He was asked if he had moved, got up, walked around or anything, No, no and no. Are you sure they asked. Yes, yes and yes he replied.

It turned out that one of the doctors involved in the experiments, a female doctor, had taken a shine to one of the male volunteers and without him moving, if that is possible, consummated that interest.

And he still got paid!