AA Gill reveals he has 'full English of cancer'

Writer AA Gill has revealed he has "an embarrassment of cancer, the full English", announcing the diagnosis in his regular Table Talk restaurant review column in the Sunday Times.

The 62-year-old food critic said the cancer began in his lungs and spread to numerous other parts of his body.

"There is barely a morsel of offal that is not included. I have a trucker's gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty, malignancy," he wrote.

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While the prognosis is unclear at present, doctors at Charing Cross Hospital in London say chemotherapy has shrunk some of the cancer and they may try a new experimental drug to further fight the disease.

However, despite the ambiguous prognosis, Gill told his Sunday Times colleague Bryan Appleyard: "I realise I don't have a bucket list; I don't feel I've been cheated of anything. I'd like to have gone to Timbuktu, and there are places I will be sorry not to see again."

The father of four added the disease had prompted him to propose to his partner of 23 years, Nicola Formby.

Gill has been praised for speaking openly about the disease. Martin Ledwick, the head nurse at Cancer Research UK, told The Guardian: "Although over recent years attitudes have begun to change, cancer is still a subject that people find difficult to discuss. When people in the public eye are open about their cancer diagnosis it can be extremely helpful in demonstrating that it is OK to talk about it."