From Peaches Geldof to the 89-year-old who went to Dignitas, it’s not been a good week for death – or for those who’ve pronounced on it

Though never much given to heroising I did, when I was 16, heroise a Regency dandy who killed himself because he could no longer be bothered doing up his buttons. I would act likewise when the time came, I thought. Wasn’t I half bored to death already? I saw myself writing the suicide note and then being too bored to finish it. “Goodb...,” I’d write. I imagined with satisfaction my friends and family puzzling over what I was trying to tell them.