Nowadays we do everything later, be it prancing shamelessly across a stage in front of thousands, à la Sir Michael Jagger, or conquering Mount Everest for a second time, like 73-year-old Tamae Watanabe. As we live longer, humanity is increasingly refusing to sit back, put its feet up and settle for a quiet old age.

Nowhere is this phenomenon of age aping youth more noticeable than in the field of divorce. So-called ''silver separation’’, the parting of couples in their sixties after as many as 40 years of marriage, is on the rise, bucking the general downward trend in divorce.