Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

Today, some 500,000 people are expected to pay their last respects to George Best in Belfast. Given the injunction to speak well of the dead, the following sentence, then, is all the more surprising: "Homage to George Best may be tasteless, but the British can be suddenly moved to a wave of sentiment for a flawed icon, as they were for Princess Diana." That's from the obituary for George Best in the current issue of The Economist. If homage to Best may be tasteless in the eyes of the writer, what follows is tasteless in the eyes of this reader:

"Mr Best fancied himself as a businessman. He invested in shops and bars, but without success. More reliable money came from modelling, from a number of autobiographies ghost-written, endorsing consumer products and commenting on the game on television. Like the newly-rich stars of football who followed him, he built a statelyish house. The media diligently reported his rise to fame and the sexual activity with drop-dead blondes that went with it, just as it painstakingly followed his slow self-destruction."

Continuing in this rather supercilious tone, the Economist writer adds: "He hit rock bottom as the star of the team at Ford Open Prison, where he had been jailed after resisting arrest, accused of drunk driving." The conclusion is equally cruel: "It is unlikely the rituals for George Best will be repeated. But academics researching the social history of Britain in the second half of the 20th century may perhaps grant him the immortality of a footnote."

Now, contrast this lack of generosity with how Kevin Myers in the Irish Times, remembered the fallen star:

"Best's character was dwarfed by his talent, his beauty, his brain, his incredible sexuality. The person has not been born who could cope with all of his gifts. The only way that as a player he could have been intellectually content was for another couple of George Bests to be playing alongside him. And what young man could resist the insistent advances of the scores of beautiful young women who, scorning any pretence of courtship, sought only the sexual recreations of his body and his bed? Four Miss Worlds sampled those pleasures; and for another three, he forgot to turn up.

George Best was burdened with more talents, and graced with more temptations, than mortal man can bear. All in all, he bore them well, gave great pleasure to millions of fans and hundreds of women, and has finally gone the way of all flesh. No reason to grieve; none at all.

So, no tears, just the acceptance that "Golden lads and lasses must/Like chimney-sweepers come to dust." Pity the flawed Economist obituary didn't focus more on on the Shakespearean humanity of Best's rise and fall. Taking cheap and easy shots at the defenceless departed is tasteless.