What is the best way to age? What is the worst?
The best way to age is to look forward with hope; the worst is to look back with regret.
David Turner, Bellevue Heights, South Australia
• Stay left. Move right.
Stephen Saunders, Canberra, Australia
• Ageing is like the ripening of a fine cheese: a gentle progression towards being delicious and desired, but, soon thereafter, whiffy and unwanted.
Stuart Williams, Kampala, Uganda
• Age like a fine cheese: stay cool! The worst thing is to sit out in the sun all day.
Donna Samoyloff, Toronto, Canada
• Lay the wine bottles down so the corks don’t dry out and let in oxygen; the worst is to keep them upright.
Adrian Cooper, Queens Park, NSW, Australia
• Best? Courage in the face of fear.
Mary Oates, Perth, Western Australia
• The best way is to prepare for the worst.
Jennifer Horat, Lengwil, Switzerland
• Best: gracefully, graciously and gratefully. With a bit of luck, healthily. Worst: none of the above, and grumpily.
Joan Dawson, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Best? Like a barrel of cider brandy. Worst? Like a banana in a rucksack.
Simon Leach, Taunton, UK
• Disgracefully. And the worst? Stuck in a comfortable rut without ever having taken a risk. Yet that is what most of us aim for with our life insurance and hypochondria.
Ted Webber, Buderim, Queensland, Australia
• The worst way to age is to not become any older; the best way is to not appear to do so.
John Hazlehurst, Dalton-in-Furness, UK
The food is great in there!
Why don’t flies and wasps stay outdoors?
Because unlike people, when they can’t stand the heat they come into the kitchen.
Sunil Bajaria, Bromley, UK
• Entomological curiosity.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
• Because they’re insects.
Victor Nerenberg, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec, Canada
• Because they find it much more fun to come inside and annoy us. Besides the food is much better in the house!
Margaret Wilkes, Perth, Western Australia
• The ones inside are spies that are sent in to alert the stinging and biting brigades when I venture outside.
Margaret Wyeth, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• They are trying to escape the rat race.
Richard Orlando, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• Because they are naturally curious and are moved also by a spirit of adventure.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Inspirational settings
N&Q answers come to me while swimming. How about you?
When I sit at my desk and look out over a native garden, where honeyeaters and lorikeets rummage for nectar among the grevillea and banksia, I am often visited by an answer.
Ursula Nixon, Bodalla, NSW, Australia
• They arrive to me as I walk in the morning along a very quiet road in Vermont with a view of the mountains and distant farm silos.
Doreen Forney, Pownal, Vermont, US
Any answers?
Is there an essence of being Canadian?
R M Fransson, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
Which way does the cookie usually crumble?
Carol Ross, Bariloche, Argentina
Send answers to weekly.nandq@theguardian.com
