Whining celebs like Philip Schofield could learn a thing or two from this Strictly star

The self-pitying Cast Away star is one of a long list of untalented mediocrities with an inner belief that they were born to achieve great things – and feel outrage when it slips away. Mirror columnist Brian Reade argues that the celebrity we all really admire, is a stoic Scouser with a talent for self-deprecation… if not dancing

Who else redecorated their living room carpet a deep shade of vomit this week watching a wet-eyed Phillip Schofield on Channel 5’s desert island show Cast Away, point the finger at everyone and everything (apart from himself and his frisky trouser snake) for ending four decades of being paid a fortune to sit on a couch and play the nice guy?

He is merely the latest example of the type of person who scraps like an XL Bully to become famous before eventually turning into an ugly lump of self-pity.

Then there’s the ex-politicians who drip with contempt for those they blame for stealing their power, lacking any self-awareness about their own ego-driven self-destruction.

For recent examples see the disgraced Matt Hancock seeking redemption in front of every camera he could find or Liz Truss swaggering across the American speaker circuit convinced liberal pygmies stopped her becoming the new Iron Lady before stomping off stage when satirists dropped a photoshopped lettuce.

Who can forget actress Meghan Markle, on realising that marrying a minor royal did not equate to being reborn as a Disney princess, flooding Oprah Winfrey’s garden with tears of victimhood about the evil media and the racist Windsors?

How about the inconsolable wannabees voted off reality shows, chippy football managers shown the door with multi-million pound payoffs and disgraced CEOs like Paula Vennells, who after trousering £5 million as Post Office boss, turned on the taps at a public hearing as allegations of persecuting her workers were put to her.

Many of these self-styled victims were untalented mediocrities with an inner belief that they were born to achieve great things, who clambered over a mountain of backs to gain their fame. Having achieved it they then believed they had a divine right to bask in that fame forever, hence the sense of outrage when it slips away.

The usual way of pointing out their grotesque lack of self-awareness is to tell them to look at the human devastation in Gaza or Sudan. But right now there is someone residing on their own Planet Celebrity whose stoic attitude shames their acute lack of perspective.

Chris McCausland, who lost his eyesight to a rare disease in early adulthood, and instead of putting on a “woe is me” act, turned his tragedy into a comedy by becoming a stand-up.

The 47-year-old Scouser is now wooing the nation on Strictly Come Dancing, partly with his ability to boogie while seeing nothing around him, but mostly through not having an ounce of self-pity for his heart-breaking predicament.

Typical of his self-deprecating humour was his reaction to negative comments from the show’s resident bitchmeister, Craig Revel Horwood: “I’m too knackered to care, mate. Give me whatever score you want. I’ll drive you home tonight.”

The viewers, like the cast and contestants, love him because they know he’s not faking it. Rather than resenting partner Dianne Buswell for saying, on hearing she was paired with a blind man, "ah well, winning isn't everything" he celebrated it.

And he was right to, because winning isn’t everything. Neither, when you lose, is whining. Especially if you have no cause to do so other than a narcissistic belief that fleeting fame has made you a living legend.

Chris McCausland is showing every spotlight-hogger that audiences love you when you refuse to play the victim.

That, no matter how low life leaves you, taking the piss out of yourself is what the world wants to see.