Fame

(Republished with permission: cancerouscapers.blogspot.com)

This blog will be the last before I’m catapulted into the glaring spotlight of the national press. As many of you will already know, these blogs are being featured in The Scotsman from Monday to Friday of next week - there’s even going to be an interview with yours truly and giant picture of my wearied and disease-ravaged face for you all to put up on your walls. I won’t lie to you, cancer fans, there is no telling how this sudden exposure to fame will effect me and the blog. By the time that I get around to writing another I may insist upon wearing sunglasses literally all of the time, disappear in a haze of substance abuse and may or may not have been photographed attempting to seduce a selection of professional football players.

I was interviewed on Tuesday, and since the very second that they left the house I’ve become increasingly concerned that I came across as the single cancer patient in the world that the British public could find genuinely unlikable. At one point, I believe that I criticized any writing by any cancer patient in history that wasn’t me, claiming each of their painstakingly-penned works to be “self-indulgent” and “harrowing” - yeah, take that Lance Armstrong you spectacularly massive wanker!

On top of this, seemingly testing myself to see how many cancer patients I could possibly criticize in the space of two hours directly in front of a reporter from a national newspaper, I revealed that I was worried about coming across as Jade Goody character who insisted upon “whining to the press about an illness and being brave”. I don’t know why, I’ve actually found her tale quite interesting to compare and contrast with mine - especially when massive idiots surmise that her illness is just a clever trick to make people like her, as if she had purposely injected herself with loads of cancer. Perhaps I was just attempting to talk down my main competition as the media-friendly face of disease.

Then there was the altogether bizarre experience of undergoing a little modelling session in my very own front room. Initially, I had suggested that we use an older photo of me when my hair was more volumous and I didn’t look like Skeletor’s grandfather, but eventually we compromised and decided to use both. This way, I can at least make sure that the public knows that I was a once a handsome man whilst also gaining enough sympathy to make it impossible for people to tear apart my writing. It is an ideal situation.

I don’t know if any of you have undergone a photo-shoot before, I certainly wouldn’t imagine so from the look of a lot of you, but it is probably the one situation in which you are most aware of your own self-image. This heightened awareness added to the fact that my face has been ravaged by six months of intensive cancer treatment could have driven a lesser man to self-harm, but not I. I like to think that I provided an emotional journey of cancer through the medium of a wide variety of poses and expressions.

Later on, like a big child, I asked my wonderful interviewer and editor, Fiona, which celebrities she had interviewed in the past and what they were like. In an impressive list that included people such luminaries as Jamie Ross and Joan Baez, she also mentioned Hear’ Say angel Myleene Klass. This made me decide that interviews are handed out based on an elaborate attractiveness rating league table created by the shallow Scotsman staff. The cancer patient interview was evidently given to Fiona to readdress the balance that was ruined after having been allowed to talk to Myleene. And I bet she didn’t publicly lambaste every cancer patient she could possibly think of either.

Anyway, we’ll just have to wait and see how I’m presented. I can actually remember very little of what I said, but surely it will all be very witty and eloquent. Monday to Friday remember, and if you’re too lazy to pick one up I’ll obviously post the links on here.

Also, I wrote a little piece for hilarious blog site Hecklerspray about Jordan earlier today. The funniest bit of which, according to my brother, I stole directly from a TV program from a few weeks ago. Oh well, have a look:

http://www.hecklerspray.com/guest-blog-jordan-wants-to-bum-rapists/200919490.php#more-19490

The best outcome of this was that, when I arrogantly typed ‘Jordan’ into Newsnow, at the top of a massive list of stories about a brewing crisis in the Middle-Eastern state of Jordan was my childish headline ‘Jordan Wants To Bum Rapists’. It’s fun writing things.

P.S. If you've been brought here by a link on The Scotsman website or Hecklerspray, I can sense your disappointment. I'd direct you to much older posts when I didn't have the energy levels of an out-of-date communion wafer if you want to see better material.