Is this really happening?! Part 1: Raising Awareness

It has been two weeks since my last proper blog post.  Hang on – that sounds a bit like I’ve apprehensively entered some kind of literary confessional – but I have excuses.  Lots of them in fact.  Because it’s also been two weeks since I’ve paused for breath.

Let’s start with Monday, the day after ‘Holiday Time’.  It was a good thing I’d been visited by the house cleaning angels because my house had a visitor in the shape of a photographer from the Telegraph.  Why the Telegraph? What’s going on? Well – I’ve got a piece of writing being published shortly.  It’s not at all glamorous – we’re talking an awareness piece about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer and I wouldn’t recommend reading it whilst eating!  But I’d really love everyone, even those politically aligned with the Telegraph, to read it because (this is currently my favourite phrase) literally knowing your shit could literally save your life.  I really hope that bit made it past the edit! Anyway, I believe the news cycle is a bit congested right now, what with a few million words worth of WhatsApps for Telegraph journalists to wade through, but this should be out imminently online and in print at some point this month.

Anyway, Andrew the photographer was a terribly nice chap who took me out onto a freezing cold golf course and apologised profusely as he got me to run around it whilst he took some action shots.  Perhaps in return for the stint in the cold, Andrew took a few professional headshots of me at the piano, looking like a proper musician.  When I received the pictures later, it was unfortunately evident just how much I’ve let myself go over the past three months.  Even though some are kind of usable if cropped just right, I’m going to look at the originals whenever I feel like indulging in more pizza going forward!

Tuesday involved an incredibly exciting event that was immediately followed by a seriously boring one.  This was quite something, considering that being photographed for a national newspaper would have previously been the highlight of my year let alone week.  But we sure are in the ‘after times’ and I made my way to trendy Shoreditch to the offices of one of the country’s most rewound TV production companies.  I’m not making this up but you’d be forgiven for thinking so.  I can’t quite believe this is happened either but I have the memories and email chains to be sure that it wasn’t all some kind of fever dream.

So, in a little room with glass walls, a couple of sofas and a shelf full of BAFTAs, I had a meeting with three TV documentary producers.  I repeat that I’m not making this up.  And no I wasn’t tempted to steal one of the BAFTAs – it’s not like I’ve done anything to earn one! Well – not yet… because this meeting was to discuss a documentary idea.  It’s probably not a good idea to go into too many details yet, but – LONG SHOT – IF in the unlikely event this gets made, it’s going to involve telling my story through the lens of being a musician who will be dead soon.  To be clear, I’m not seeking fame or notoriety with this – the photoshoot was honestly hard enough – but this could be an excellent platform to reduce the stigma surrounding cancer (particularly bowel cancer) and stomas whilst I’m there. Perhaps I can fashion some of colostomy bags into a set of bagpipes or something.

Sorry to leave everyone on tenterhooks but here’s the bit you’ve been waiting for…

Drum roll please….

The boring event was a CT scan: more on that in a few episodes time.

The next blog is arguably more bonkers than this one, so stay tuned!