stick a fork in him

He's done.

Former football star George Best has died in hospital at the age of 59.

Son Calum, 24, who had kept an all-night vigil at Best's bedside, said: "Not only have I lost my dad but we've all lost a wonderful man."

Poor Bestie. Poor, sad, Bestie. Fuck him. He ended thirty years of living like a swine by dying like a fool. True, he was a witty fellow, as Gordon Burn points out:

It seems remarkable, given his career of drunk-driving, philandering and domestic violence, and his multiple addictions to alcohol, gambling and sex, that Best only went to prison once. That happened in 1984 when, after failing to appear in court on a drunk-driving charge and resisting arrest after the police cornered him in a girlfriend's flat, he served two months. But it's an exchange that took place in the canteen at Southwark crown court before sentencing that has entered Best lore. His friends and defence team were staring into the bottom of their coffee cups, with nothing to say. Then George glanced across at them with a smile. "Well, I suppose that's the knighthood fucked," he said.

But there's also the case for the prosecution:

Between the accounts of how she had been given black eyes and broken arms and had her hair hacked off in the night by her drunken husband, Alex Best's book, Always Alex, is a litany of tabloid-funded trips to faraway places with George. A beating and a payday. Another love rat scandal, another BestEnders episode sold to the pops.

Now wit implies self-awareness. So what's to be said about a man who didn't just choose to be a wife beating drunk but to be a professional wife-beating drunk?

I suppose this is all going to be excused because of him being a working class hero. Well fuck that too. John Prescott's an inarticulate oaf because he's working class. Cherie Blair's greedy and superstitious because she's working class. George Best became a professional wife beating drunk because he comes from the working classes. And we all know what they're like don't we?

I'm a football fan, but fuck the football too. It meant nothing from the moment he first raised his hand to his wife. If he could have avoided living like a swine by staying in Belfast and working at Tesco's, then he should have done that. One footballer isn't much of a loss. There's always another one out there.

Comments

[chris]

My wife ran into Best on a train a few years ago. He was getting run out of first class for not having a ticket. We thought that just about summed it up.

By the way, Prescott is far from being an oaf, inarticulate or otherwise. This can be an extremely dangerous mistake to make - he probably has a quicker grasp of any given situation than you have, and he isn't at all afraid to exploit it.

[Justin]

Well said, Jamie. My other half used to work in Chelsea and saw Best all the time (invariably sitting outside a pub on the Kings Road with pint in hand). Her job? She worked in a women's refuge clearing up the carnage the likes of Best created.

All this lachrymose crap about him makes me want to spit. The likes of Parkinson should hang their heads. What is it about hitting the Mrs that makes it so easily dismissable?