The Kill Cancer Death Rally

Ghost Dog – tagline “Live by the code. Die by the code” – is a funny old movie. When I say funny, I mean a little bit boring. It’s a flick that people who I would let go to the video shop unaccompanied like, and yet I fell asleep in it. Pretentious, action packed with a wicked Wu Tang Clan soundtrack (and whilst we’re on the subject of the Clan, check out Ol Dirty Bastard life story) – it’s my type of film. Hmmm, a puzzler.

The reason I mention it is that during the movie the pigeon fancying wannabe samurai, played by Forrest Whitaker, occasionally reads from the Hagakure, the code of the Samurai, and one bit stuck with me :

“Each day a samurai should contemplate his own death and consider various ways of dying, from being torn apart in the jaws of a wild beast, to falling from thousand foot cliffs, and during some part of the day, the samurai should consider himself dead.”

The reason that stuck is because I think contemplating mortality is good for the soul. However, now we’re so over-protected you can’t even teach kindergarten classes to juggle with flaming hedge strimmers, without the ‘elf and bloody safety busy-bodies breathing their nanny state fumes down your free decent English yeoman neck, I’d advise you get real, and start thinking about cancer.

A good place to start is the cheery sounding Cancer Stats webpage. It’s like YouTube for hypochondriacs. Did you know there are 24 types of cancer, and yet four types, breast, lung, bowel and prostate – account for over half of all new cases? Good to see that cancer, like any good business, roughly follows the 20/80 rule of getting 80% of your business (read deaths) from 20% of your service providers (read cancers).

For your viewing pleasure, here are the 24 types of cancer. And if we’re contemplating our impending dooms, allow me to paraphrase the Wu Tang Clan : 24 ways to die, chose one.

Bladder cancer Bone cancer Bowel cancer Brain and CNS cancer

Breast cancer Cervical cancer Hodgkin’s lymphoma Kidney cancer

Laryngeal cancer Leukaemia Liver cancer Lung cancer

Malignant melanoma Multiple myeloma  Non-Hodgkin lymphoma Oesophageal cancer  

Oral cancer Ovarian cancer Pancreatic cancer Prostate cancer 

Stomach cancer Testicular cancer Thyroid cancer Uterine cancer

Which one do you want least? And really try to imagine it. To my mind they all look totally rubbish. Except, that is, Multiple Myeloma. I just can’t stop saying it to the tune of My Sharona. Whenever I said I had cancer I’d be able to say “I’ve got a Multiple Myeloma, ma-ma-ma-ma-My-yi-yi-yi-yi-eloma”.

Obviously Cancer Research UK are doing all they can to stop anyone having to sing which terminal disease they have to tunes by The Knack. And the Kill Cancer Death Rally is doing all it can to raise money for those bad ass cancer killing research doctors. Go on then, give us some money.

GSOT : I’ll have it with a side order of fries, please