Lincoln Allison, a contributor to the excellent Social Affairs Unit blog has this rather amusing, if at times harsh, list of various people he thinks are not quite the greats they are cracked up to be. Revealing the conservative tilt of that blog, his candidates are:
Princess Diana, Che Guevara, Salman Rushdie, John Lennon, George Best and John Osborne.
Maybe I am getting soft and liberal (in the US sense) in my early middle age, but with the exception of Guevara, I rather like most of the above, or at least I do not get as exercised as some right-of-centre folk do. Diana? Well, she was annoying, or at least the hysteria over her death was, but I was saddened by her death, sorry for her sons and relations and would rather she was still with us.
Lennon? A bit of a nob as a person, maybe, but a brilliant musician – Revolver is one of my favourite albums.
Osborne – no real opinion, although I loved his personification of evil in Get Carter.
Then there is Rushdie: I just cannot agree with Allison; for all that I cannot be bothered to tackle his fiction, I admire his unbending stance on Islamic fanaticism and his no-compromise approach to free speech.
And then there is dear, dead George Best (I met him a few times). Allison makes the rather unusual approach of not actually attacking George Best’s drinking or womanising but attacks his skill as a footballer, claiming that Northern Irish players like Danny Blanchflower were greater as they achieved success with “lesser” teams (I am sure Spurs fans will be galled to hear that their lot was a lesser team in the 1960s than Manchester United. Spurs in fact won a sackload of trophies in that decade). He also says Best could not cope with Italian-style defenders. Well, he did not play against Italy much so how do we know and Best made mincemeat of the likes of top European sides Benfica and Real Madrid. His demolition of the former team at their home ground in 1966 – the year I was born – remains one of the highlights of 20th century football.
