I think 2016 will go down as the year
the stars died. It has been a strange year, when lots of celebrities
have passed away. It seems that every time I turn on the TV another
celebrity is gone. Some of them were quite old, so it wasn't much of a
shock, such as Ronnie Corbett, but others, like Victoria Wood or David
Bowie, were certainly unexpected.
On a personal level, I too have lost a
friend this year, plus there was a death in the family of my son’s
partner, so what is it that is causing this unusual amount of doom
and gloom?
I have to make a confession. Up until
this week I had nothing to do with any of the deaths of all the
celebrities mentioned. Now, before I go any further I must point out
that I'm in no way physically responsible for any death ever,
except... I seem to have some sort of curse put on me.
It all started back in 1997 when my
first book The Spot On My Bum had just been released. I was
attending my first book-signing (something I have grown to loathe)
and as a first-time author I was quite excited. Earlier that week I
had done an interview with The Sun newspaper and even had my
photo taken with my son to be shown in the paper. At the end of the
book-signing, Steve Rudd from my publishing company, King’s England
Press, said as a parting shot, “You will be in The Sun on
Tuesday and should get quite a good spread, unless something stupid
happens, like Princess Diana dying!”
That night, which was a Saturday, was
spent out drinking with my brother and his wife. The next morning I
awoke feeling groggy and made my way downstairs to put the kettle on
to see if a cup of tea would ease my poor banging hung-over head. As
I waited for the kettle to boil I put the TV on for the news. Can you
imagine my horror when the first line the newscaster spoke was,
“Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris last night.”
I sat there opened-mouthed as the words
that Steve had said the day before reverberated around in my head. I
blame Steve for that one, as all the media for the next two weeks
covered every aspect of this boring woman's life. Needless to say, my
fifteen minutes of fame in a national newspaper got moved to a small
column.
Since then it seems that every time I
release a book someone famous dies. I have seen off Nelson Mandela,
Michael Jackson… and even the atrocities in Paris coincided with me
releasing a book.
On Boxing Day 2015 floods swept through
Calderdale causing dreadful damage to property and untold misery for
the inhabitants. The people of Calderdale were only just getting over
a previous flood. Lots of them could not get insurance cover which
only served to compound their misery. I'm actually the poet laureate
for Calderdale and decided to try raise some money to help with the
flood appeal. Although I did not write the book, I got the young
people who had witnessed the flood first-hand to do that; my name is
on the cover of the book as the editor. The book was released last
Thursday but we had plans to do the publicity for the book this week.
I woke on Sunday (I shall have to give Sundays a miss from now on) to
the news that arguably the most famous man on the planet had passed
away, Muhammed Ali!
Unless you have just written a book
about Muhammed Ali, I can't begin to tell you just how difficult it
is to get a book publicised right now. But if you are reading this, no
matter where you are in the world, please log on to
www.kingsengland.com
and purchase a copy of the book Floods of Tears, Floods of
Laughter. All profits go to the flood appeal.
So I'm giving fair warning that I do
intend to release a book called Cooking With Babbo and Nonna
in a few months’ time. If you are very famous, or if you are a
friend of someone very famous, can you please warn them? If they are
feeling unwell, even if they just have a little sniffle, tell them to
seek urgent medical help.
Who knows who will next fall to the Walsh
curse? Whoever it is will be a good person; evil little creeps seem
to be immune to the spell!
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