AMID the outpouring of love and good wishes for Kylie Minogue in her breast cancer battle, there was one sour note struck, typically, by a bloke.

He called in to the Jeremy Vine Radio 2 show to complain about all the fuss over Kylie when, he said, plenty of other women suffer this disease and don't get that sort of attention.

He had, I reckon, entirely missed the point.

In choosing to go public on this, rather than tell a pack of lies and hide it all away - Kylie has sent out a powerful message to all women with breast cancer to let them know they are not alone.

It was a brave and generous gesture from a young woman who relies, in part, on her good looks and fabulous body for her living, and who must have wondered what effect surgery will have on that image.

By going public, Kylie will already have prompted countless thousands of other young women, who thought "It can't happen to me", to examine themselves. Some will undoubtedly discover cancerous lumps that they will then, like Kylie, be able to have treated successfully at an early age.

Cancer, especially in younger people, can be doubly depressing and isolating.

You can't join in with your mates like normal, you feel dreadful, and the treatment can make you look weird. Now, however, breast cancer patients have a new fellow-traveller and stunning poster-girl for their cause.

The Kylie factor will shove this disease back into the public eye and will hopefully remind those with the power to increase research funding that it doesn't just attack pop stars but our mums, sisters, cousins, aunts and grannies and that we should do something to help them NOW.

I can't think of one person - Mr Miseryguts excepted - who doesn't wish Kylie the very best because that's already what she's wished to every other breast cancer patient in the cheery message on her website.

Good luck to her and get well soon to everyone fighting this disease.