As if to prove that not all Scots die prematurely of a surfeit of deep-fried Mars bars, the General Register Office for Scotland has published today a list of centenarians in Scotland. Since the 1950s, the number of people over 100 has been the fastest growing age group - there are now 720 of them in Scotland, 630 women and 90 men.

There are also 30,470 people over the age of 90, though this is down a trace compared with last year's figure of 31,790. The explanation is that there are fewer men and women in their early 90s, because birth rates were low in 1915-17, during the First World War.

Although women over 100 greatly outnumber men, men are catching up. In the past six years the number of female centenarians in Scotland has increased by about a quarter, while the number of men of the same age has increased by a half.