So George Best finally slipped away at around lunchtime, pretty much a month after the papers began practically printing his obituary (including as noted on the Andrew Collings show last week, a rather sick pull-out in the News of the World, which they had clearly rushed in in the hope or belief that George would die that die, not wanting to miss the boat in "tributes"). I was enjoying the way the media seemed to be pretty certain he was about to die and yet George had other plans, essentially ensuring himself three or four weeks in the news. I woke up this morning expecting him already to have gone, as that was what was predicted by his doctors. The Evening Standard for yesterday hoping to trump its rivals led with "George Slips Away" which wasn't the case. He was slipping, but had not gone away yet. "George continues his long slide" would have been more accurate. Despite all this, obstinate George hung on. I wondered how long he would have to live before the press lost interest and abandonned him as a kind of macabre boy who cried wolf. I was kind of hoping that George would prove to be immortal and that for the rest of our days the papers would be filled with rash predictions of his demise and mournful photos of Best supposedly wishing he hadn't done all the things that have made him ill.
But my hopes were dashed. I had just posted yesterday's entry and was watching the news as the news came in. And I don't think it's fanciful to conjecture that George had been merely waiting for yesterday's entry of this diary before he passed on, knowing as I am sure he did that that day's entry completed the third year of continuous daily posting on this site.He knew he could steal the thunder of my third anniversary by dying and so he'd be the centre of attention on this momentous day.
I don't mean to mock George Best here. He didn't really cross my radar too much and his hey day was before my time, but he seemed like an interesting man. The footage of him playing they showed was incredible, mainly in that he just made everyone else on the pitch look like an idiot. I don't recall seeing football players looking so bamboozled and stupid when one man has cut through a massive gang of them and scored a goal. If you liked football and lived in the late 60s, then I can see why this is a sad day.
Also he lived a life that I think many men would envy and would willingly swap their lot for even if it meant a protracted death at 59. He liked drinking and sleeping with women and to the British these are the most admirable of qualities. The fact that he pissed away his talent chasing these things makes him seem all the more desirable. I can't really argue. Apart from the talent and the Miss Worlds I have walked in the foothills of the same monumentous trek. But alas ultimately am too sensible and return home to get my cagoule and then stay in and have some cocoa instead.
Is it a waste of a life or what life should be? Ultimately most of us will be lying in a hospital bed about to die and will we be thinking, "I wish I'd had it off with Miss World and filled up loads of glasses of champagne piled up on top of each other with a look of childish glee in my eyes"? I suspect we might.
Of course there's a part of me that thinks Best was an idiot, largely because he was an idiot in some ways. It's hard to feel truly sorry for a man who gets to the point where his drinking has got so bad that he needs a new liver and then doesn't take that as a sign to stop. There's a clue in the name liver. It's called that because you need it to live. In a way I feel sorry for the liver, which might have gone on to a long and happy life in the body of a reformed alcoholic but was doomed to die quite quickly and hadn't even had the fun of taking part in the whole shagging Miss Worlds bit, during which time it resided in the body of some clean living non alchoholic who didn't know how to have fun. Then the liver's boring host gets knocked over by a bus and the liver thinks, "Well maybe I'll get some kind of a life now!" only to be drowned in alcohol amongst a load of other ravaged organs, all going on about the glory days of being in George Best.
But I can't stay mad at George for long. Or for Peter Cook who some might argue similarly blew his talent in favour of having a drink. There is something heroic in it. There is something admirable in it. And if only I had had a youth of prodigious success then I would happily join them. But alas my lack of talent and mediocrity means I have to keep on working, so my alcoholism and Miss World shagging must be kept to a moderate level (which means I can maybe shag the odd Miss Weymouth).
RIP George, you stupid wonderful man.
And happy third anniversary to all Warming Up fans.
