WHO HE?

Cass Brown is a regular contributor to the Gen Plus Blog. Take a minute and you'll draw several grins and possibly a few hearty chuckles.Cass' blog in the UK, the very popular, VERY funny, and very personal Cancergiggles, has drawn over a quarter of a million visitors over the past two years. In his words, "Cancergiggles is an idiot's guide to accepting, living with, laughing at and dying from cancer. The very, very last bit I can't be absolutely sure of, but then who the hell can? I could have written some beautifully crafted, grammatically correct essays but I hope you will understand, that when I say "I don't have a lot of time" I mean it far more literally than you do. I just wanted scribble a few thoughts to maybe light a spark in people - and then it became a book about Cancer, Life, Death, Illness and Politics". His book is available through http://www.genplususa.com/shop.aspx, www.lulu.com, or for a signed copy, directly through his site.

His job at 50 plus is,in fact, living with cancer, and though he's not sufficiently salaried for his skill set, has the insight of a Fortune 100 CEO or, for that matter, the Surgeon General.

I can't actually put a date on when I became what I am, but I'm pretty sure that it was around the time I was nearly dead about four years ago. There were no blinding lights or world shattering revelations - in fact I was so far out of my nut on morphine, that I think that this me crept in whilst I wasn't looking. Cancer is damn tricky.

The comic bit of me, to the serious annoyance of many, has always been pretty much to the fore because put simply, I have always preferred laughing to crying and have found that I operate far more efficiently when my ribs hurt. Since I nearly went to the big Comedy Club in the sky however, I have become far more analytical about the positive benefits of my somewhat ridiculous view of life. For a start I am still breathing, long after the medics had expected me to ART (Assume Room Temperature) and I put this down to exercising my lungs by laughing. Jogging or working out sure as hell aren't responsible for me still being here, nor is my lifelong chairmanship of the Temperance League. Having always treated my body as a temple (the drunken orgy, Walpurgis Night, ritual sacrifice, completely in ruins sort of temple), I could well have expected that by now I would have been having a seriously long snooze in a box. Instead I laughed myself silly all the way through the crap (just noticed I mistyped that as carp and that really wouldn't make a lot of sense even to me) and discomfort and giggled at what an amazing mess I am. My insides feel like they were put together by an extremely splintered committee and my outside looks like it was stitched together by a drunken Glaswegian welder. Stercus Accidit. (Ed. note: a little bit of Latin for you.)

What really made all this gel as a conscious way of life, was the unexpected response I got when I started to write about it in a blog. I instinctively knew that it was the best way for me and my family, but was honestly astonished that so many people already were or became adherents to the "don't take it too seriously" theory. I have been positively encouraged by the medics even though they have been on the receiving end of many a wicked comment, the sick and lame joined in the fun and what surprises me more than anything is that droves of normal, healthy folk seem to think it's a bloody good way to live. The last thing I ever expected to become is a preacher, because my only real qualification is that I've got a hat. I wonder what the odds are of succeeding as an evangelical TV comic?