Saturday 15 March 2008

As not inconsiderably grey as the last Tory PM

14st 4lb (“oh yes”, as John Major might say); zero alcohol; 1,420; Doldrums.

It’s a grey, wet, miserable day, ideally spent in front of a fire working my way through a great stack of newspapers, and periodically nodding off to sleep.

I’m convinced I’ve got throat cancer. I’ve had a sore throat for months now. In fact, I’d had it for months when I went to the doctor about it in January, and he told me it was nothing to worry about. When I went back in February he refused even to look at it. What a superb case this would make for an ambulance-chasing solicitor if I turned out to be right. And what a pointless one, given that I haven’t got any descendants to benefit from the windfall. It seems a bit late to start trying to beget children, and far from the most promising of chat-up lines. “Hello, would you like to go out with me with a view to having a child who can benefit from a potential medical negligence claim in the event of my imminent death?” Nah, I can’t see that one taking. I suppose I could try to adopt, but fear that I can predict the reaction if I were to try and adopt, say, a 16-year-old girl. Notably from the 16-year-old girl herself.

You will note that I exclude the possibility that my cancer might be cured. One of the exceptionally beautiful young women I went drinking with in Soho the other night worked for a pharmaceutical company, and she described their star new product as giving lung cancer sufferers a whole three months of additional life. So long as they didn’t mind feeling nauseous throughout, and coming out in a horrible rash. Mind you, she didn’t work for the marketing department, who might have put it slightly differently. I didn’t dare ask how many thousands of pounds a course of this wonder drug costs the NHS. I just sat there sipping my red wine and reflecting on the eternal truth of Evelyn Waugh’s dictum: all fates are worse than death.

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