Public service announcement.

I’m a sucker for fancy dress parties. I appreciate that’s a statement that probably rivals Marmite in its ability to polarise people but, when it comes to dressing up and making a tit of myself, I’m firmly in the ‘love’ camp. My fancy-dress history is prolific – I’ve been Morticia, Poison Ivy, a schoolgirl, a hula girl, a policewoman, a witch, a fairy – but it’s only over the last couple of years that I’ve come to realise that fancy dress isn’t just a giggle, but bloody genius, too. See, it’s come to my rescue on two occasions when I've desperately needed it.

The first was for my friend Ivan’s 40th last year, when the theme was to dress as anything from the last four decades. Now, at the time I was at that awkward-hair-regrowth stage where I looked like a cross between Baby Stewie and a pre-plugs John Travolta, so the thought of being able to disguise my bonce for a party where a wig was preferred rather than necessary was one helluva boon. Cue me and P dressed as Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega, and me being stared at by other party goers not because of my dodgy barnet, but my even dodgier party trick of emptying the sherbet from a flying saucer, pulling out my red lipstick and messily shoving them both up my nose, a la Pulp Ficton’s overdose scene. (I’m what you might call a method fancy-dresser.)

The second occasion is the reason I’m posting today, given that the next fancy-dress party falls at the brilliantly timed juncture when I’ll have sufficiently recovered from this week’s surgery to treat myself to a few G&Ts, but won’t yet have had the reconstruction to my right’un. So, as the kind of doofus who thinks that planning exciting stuff months in advance doesn’t so much take the fun out of an event but multiply it by twelve, I’m already scouting out the perfect high-necked, bust-covering outfit. (Current favourites: Wednesday Addams and Lily Munster.)

The reason I’m telling you all of this is that I’m hoping you’ll join me. This is a bit of a public-service charity post, y’see. It’s not something I usually do – or will make a habit of doing – but, today, I’m much more comfortable talking about a couple of fabulous fundraisers than what’s actually happening in my crazy world. You might have expected different from Alright Tit this week, given that my ladybit-losing surgery takes place on Wednesday – but while it might indeed be cathartic to blog about the passionate slanging match in my mind between the right-shoulder devil who thinks I’m a prize dickhead for voluntarily asking surgeons to remove my vital bits and the left-shoulder angel who insists that doing it is a positive, control-taking step, I do hope you’ll understand that it’s just not something I want to put myself through right now. So instead, allow me to draw your attention to a couple of things I think you’ll like:

Back To Life: Reanimated – a Halloween charity extravaganza

Every year my friends Sally and Ivan arrange a party to raise money for charities which are close to their mates’ hearts. This year, they’ve chosen my old muckers Breast Cancer Care as one of their charities (along with Marie Curie Cancer Care and Action For Children) and will be filling a venue in Clerkenwell with fun stuff, brilliant music and enough booze to make a room full of daftly-dressed people feel less like twonks for having travelled on the underground dressed as Freddy Krueger.

There are only 180 tickets available (at a mere £8 a pop; click on the flyer for details) so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll join me and Pugsley Addams/Herman Munster and lots of other lovely folk for my first night out of pyjamas. (Unless of course I decide to go as Wee Wille Winkie.)

Celebrity Boutique for the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity

The list of organisations to which I owe a giant debt is tipped firmly in the direction of The Royal Marsden, for they are responsible for the resounding success of my cancer treatment and continuing care. It speaks volumes, I think, that despite the crappy stuff I’ve endured in the building, I still experience a perverse excitement about going back to see the staff who’ve cared so well for me. Everyone I’ve encountered there – from the oncology team to the nurses in chemo, the radiotherapy staff, the psychological medicine department, physiotherapists, geneticists and beyond – have been utterly, utterly wonderful.

Thus, I’m always going to leap on the bandwagon of every wonderful thing that The Royal Marsden do – not least their latest fundraising venture, Celebrity Boutique. They’ve secured a number of top celebrities – hello Victoria Beckham, Sienna Miller, Nigella Lawson, Elizabeth Hurley, Stella McCartney, Gwen Stefani, SamCam, Dannii Minogue… – who’ve each donated red-carpet outfits which The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity will then auction on eBay. Bidding begins on 21 October, but you can already check out the dresses online.
 
Sienna Miller says: “Celebrity Boutique is a great way to indulge your love of fashion whilst doing something good for others. I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”

Lisa Lynch says: “Get your arse to www.royalmarsden.org/boutique before I give you a Chinese burn.”