Diamond Geezer

I've long harboured a not-so-secret desire to have my own weekly column in a daily paper. It's a pipe dream more than anything and not a particularly nobel one. It's entirely driven by the same self indulgance that lets me tell myself someone will oneday find and enjoy these ramblings on here! I say things like "Well, if Ulrika Jonsson and Vanessa Feltz can do it...", or, "It's only one page a week. I could do that!" In fact though the roots of my desire go a little deeper.

I first realised that this was the pipe dream for me reading the columns in the Daily Express at my Grandma's house. Topaz Amore was amusing, Martin Samuel was very funny, if a little too focused on sport. Top of the pile, my favourite of all, was John Diamond. You may be aware that John Diamond quite famously died of cancer and recorded his experiences of the illness in his Times newspaper column. In the Express his illness merited no more than a passing mention. I knew he was ill but it was irrelavent. I enjoyed his writing, shared some of his views. Although I can't remember what those views were anymore.

I read his columns in the Express and latterly his tv column in The Observer, until the point when he stopped writing them, which wasn't until the end. When he died I was sad. I didn't cry or mourn but I was sorry he was gone, I would miss his wit and intelligence. He was like a favourite DJ or album. Familiar, there when you need it. I guess this is why I really want to be a columnist. The arrogant idea that I might become a fixture of peoples lifes. Not an important one, just something to look forward to, something familiar to enjoy over a cup of tea and a biscuit. I'd like people to miss my column if it finished, I'd like them to enjoy it while it lasts.

Yesterday I picked up C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too, John Diamond's book about his cancer struggle. 90p in the local library sale. He stills speaks in the voice that I gave him but the tone, implicite in the words, is his own. I've reached a point in the book where he mentions other columnists who he had written fan letters to. If I was the sort of person who wrote fanmail to journalists I would've written to John Diamond.