What is the secret of a long and happy life – five pieces of fruit a day? All too possible. A glass of red wine? Perhaps. Accepting a job as manager of Tottenham Hotspur? Probably not. Yet now the answer to this age-old question might be found in a smallish clam that was dredged up from the Atlantic off Iceland.

The clam, from a species called the ocean quahog, appears to be the oldest living creature ever known. It might even have been with us today had not the dredging team from Bangor University scooped it untimely from the ocean floor and finished it off when it was a sprightly 405 years old. (And still living in its own shell.)

Even an ocean quahog that pays scant attention to its health can live for 200 years, but this one had reached the age where it was beginning to consider a career in Liberal Democrat politics. The clam has been nicknamed Ming by the research team at Bangor, although they insist that this refers to the dynasty that happened to be in charge of China at the beginning of the clam’s life.

If Ming had been hoping for a quiet old age, he will clearly have been disappointed. He is not only going to be examined for clues about climate change, but Help the Aged has offered a £40,000 grant in the hope that he might be able to unlock the secrets of a long life.

Early results do not look encouraging. Ming has not had a particularly active or interesting life. He has never been one to seize the day. In fact, he has spent the past 400 years sitting quietly on the sea bed wondering whether he should get out a little more.

If that was not discouraging enough, he has also enjoyed – if that’s quite the word – a very low rate of reproduction. Let’s be frank here. If this is the secret of old age, then you can keep it. Remember instead the words of Sir Clement Freud, who once remarked: “If you give up smoking, drinking and loving, you don’t actually live longer – it just seems like it.”