We can all sympathise with Chris Hoy for his terminal cancer, and admire the manner in which he revealed it. Dignity so rarely goes with celebrity. We wish him well. But Hoy has two advantages over me. First, he cycles faster. Second, he knows how long he has to live. It is four years at the outside.

Hoy can therefore plan. He can draw up a final bucket list. He can complete the projects, deepen the friendships and make the trips. He still has time to climb the munros, visit Machu Picchu and see all of Shakespeare. Or he can choose not to. He can be a hedonist and take each day as it comes, revelling in what he calls his good fortune to have lived at all. He does not mention religion, but I sense that for him life itself has a sufficiency of meaning.

In this respect I truly envy him. I had a cancer that was caught in time and removed. For a brief moment after it was diagnosed, I felt the same panic as did Hoy, but also the mild exhilaration at entering the presence of the gods of time. Having revealed........

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