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Tallis in Wonderland

Reflections on Taking My Blood Pressure

Raymond Tallis finds himself within himself.

Those who meet your columnist face to face rather than through the mediation of the printed word may note some changes in his appearance. The informal carbon dating of a glance suggests that he will in the not too distant future start losing his battle with the most universal of the habits of the material world, of which the body he has taken for granted is a small sample. The habit in question is captured in the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which says that the disorder of a closed system tends to increase. In other words, things tend to get messier over time. Appearances notwithstanding, your columnist’s body is a highly ordered system.

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