THERE WAS an obituary in one of the English papers the other day about a fellow who parently was "handsome, bright, witty and gay; an iconic cult figure to his generation at Cambridge, and then to readers of his novels and journalism. He wrote more; danced more; loved more than anyone else I know...on one occasion (while working for a male escort agency) he found he had been hired for the evening as a birthday present for the television presenter Russell Harty.

Do you ever feel you are not living at all? That life is passing you by, that you have been treating it as a dress performance, that when the obituarists get round to you the embarrassment will be huge, with hardly a thing to write except your name, dates of birth, marriage, death?

Can you bear the thought of never having been hired for even an hour, never mind an evening, as a birthday present for anyone (of any sex)? Will your entire claim to fame rest on a wildly inflated third hand description of the night you got tickets for The Late Late Show and were seen on national television for nine seconds when the person beside you won a spot prize?

It is a depressing thought, I agree.

On the same day in the same paper (the Independent) another obituary, of Nicholas Wahl, formerly a Harvard professor of history, was a little less depressing (I mean in terms of the man's achievements). Wahl, despite his erudition, seemed a little more...normal. More human, perhaps.

For example, at one stage of his life he set out to write a biography of Charles de Gaulle. "No one was more qualified" to write it, we were told. But did he write it? No. He toyed with different titles - "De Gaulle and the French", "De Gaulle and the idea of France". But the book was never written and as the obituarist pointed out, "as the years went by one realised it never would be."

How then does the sensitive obituarist deal with this well, let us be blunt, this failure?

Very cleverly indeed. We are told Wahl found writing a drudgery, and what he really adored was talking and networking: "In Oscar Wilde's phrase, he put his genius into his life, his talent only into his work."

Smart, what? Wahl also liked the odd drink, and the obituarist tells us how he "got agreeably drunk at a luncheon party given by some friends of ours." Now, how to convert this embarrassing revelation into praise? Easy enough: "This was followed by a hilarious evening as we helped him compose a witty letter of apology."

Look: I am here with time on my hands, brains to burn, and now propose to compose and supply obituaries as required. All will be taken care of, you need have no worries. The treatment will be sensitive, above all discreet. Even your worst traits will be turned to advantage.

Say you are a well known wife beater. How will I get round that? I will write something like this:

"Jocelyn was an immensely patient man whose patience was indeed often sorely tried. If at times his limits were exceeded he reacted mildly enough in difficult circumstances. As the Greeks say, esam Dario paides duo, Artaxerxes kai Cyrus.

Do you see? Everything explained satisfactorily. A subtle slur cast on the women who drove you to violence. The classy quote thrown in for free - if you want it in the original Greek you will have to pay a bit more however, there is the added work of changing the typeface.

I will even supply quotes from books you never wrote! How? Why, I will merely quote from the manuscripts which I "discovered" in your attic. I will present you as being shy of publishing your intimate thoughts on life, history, public affairs. The entire obituary will amaze and impress your friends. They will regret not having known certain "sides" to you.

PS: I can also supply remote, glamorous griefstruck blondes to turn up at your funeral and cause sharp intakes of breath and flurries of urgent sotto voce inquiries. They will drop perhaps a single petunia (there will be no vulgar red roses allowed), or a small bunch of fresh rain drenched fuchsia on your coffin, then walk away hurriedly, a Chanel perfumed handkerchief held to the huge down turned eyes now welling with tears.

They will all be fully fledged graduates of Joe Dowling's Gaiety School of Acting but there will be nobody to know that, Joe and I are discretion itself.