Coverage of George Bests funeral

Does anyone else agree that the coverage of George best's funeral is right over the top. Great footballer yes, and really nice guy - but non stop live coverage on Sky news and radio five live for three hours is surely slightly exagerated...

unless there are million lining the streets i'd say, yes it's just a touch excessive. not to mention intrusive still anything for some cheap ghoulvision.

i know there are millions lining the streets, but the vast majority of them will never have seen him play live or met him personally, they just get carried away with the media obsession. Its the Diana syndrome...

The reality is that the vast majority don't even visit their own family graves, but they follow like sheep for someone they probably never saw play the game. WHY ?

why would someone feel the need to whinge about it on the internet?

Switch the fookin telly off then.

its called 'expressing an opinion'

Barney Army wrote: why would someone feel the need to whinge about it on the internet?

Switch the fookin telly off then.

It was on BBC TV as well wasn't it?

Surely the BBC wasting considerable sums of our money on this ought to be criticised? It's just another sad example of the cult of celebrity gone mad.

very true, still at least Bestie was a celeb with a talent, can you imagine scenes like this when that big tited child mutating oxygen theif Jordan dies. Horrible thought.

There are nowhere near millions lining the streets, few thousand at most, and that apparently justifies intruding on his family's grief in this way to satisy a bunch of corpse feeding media-whores

Just pray Madonna has a long life. If she ever died young the funeral coverage would last a decade.

twist wrote: Just pray Madonna has a long life. If she ever died young the funeral coverage would last a decade.

bit late for that isn't it...her dying young i mean.

BBC NI had more cameras on that than on any political or bloodthirsty event in this fookin country. Do I object to the nation's TV getting boned, a litt, but not a tenth as much as I mind the invasion of bestie's privacy. I heard bits of it on the radio and seen bits on the telly, and the constant blah blah blah was just soul deadening, there's only so long you can talk about a lump of cold meat in a box (george having long since departed said meat).

If she died today from complications of horse fucking CNN would have non-stop coverage and Cindy Shehan would be protesting horse fuckers.

twist wrote: If she died today from complications of horse fucking CNN would have non-stop coverage and Cindy Shehan would be protesting horse fuckers.

Now that's just unfair...she'd be protesting those who sent horse-fuckers to the farm

While I'm trying to make up for the 1,000th time I have pretty much assured myself a place in hell, let me say that excessive celebrity death coverage is a mixed bag. To be sure, it is a comment on our society that we place so much emphasis on some crap entertainer dying, but sometimes (as with Phil Hartman), it's kinda nice to see someone remembered and their life commented upon.

That being said, the whole JFK Junior thing put me off "twenty-four hour coverage" like that (guy got by on his looks and his name, and just because he's arrogant enough to try flying without enough lessons it's suddenly a national tragedy. Give me a break...)

I don't think in the case of a genuine talent like Best, anyone would object to hours of programming about the man. However, several hours of wet streets in belfast with Mr Best's former corporial vessel in a box as the main attraction and lots of people mumbling "somber occasion". And as for the interviews..."so how do you feel about this?"...what answer are the expecting? "i'm elated, the man was a total pigfucker", unlikely.

You want bitter and twisted, gimme a call when the country goes loopy over some pointless fucktard with no right to have been around in the first place.

Princess Di still wears the same dress. Jesus, remember Mother Teresa's funeral?? Caption read "Friend of Princess Di."

Not enough coverage of Hunter S. Thompson's funeral.

I reccomend everyone check out penn and teller's fine show "bullshit". The episode "holier than thou" has some startling information about the wisenned old penguin (or free state arabs as they are occasionally called in these parts). Not even gonna repeat the shit, just watch it.

Madge's funeral will no doubt be fucking horrific. But my real fear would be Jordan's or fucking....fuck...that fat chav from big brother, Jade. that will be a pure scrote load of celeb worship spunk that will.

Didn;t see dick about several important people's funerals but they'll go nuts for those empty creatures (not GB btw, just clearing that up )

I never realised we are better off with Jade Goody alive Steve..

George Best? Eh? The Wedding Present album?

Barney Army wrote: why would someone feel the need to whinge about it on the internet?

Switch the fookin telly off then.

Why would someone feel the need to whinge about someone whinging about it? Dont' read the fookin thread then!

I can see why those who are actually old enough to remember him playing football (rather than just being famous for drinking himself to death) might want to mark the occasion.

I wonder if he had a donor card?

he did actually, as much use as a Factory contract, but a nice thought.

I'd have thought that 3 or 4 hours of programs celebrating his life and a quick cut to the service might have been a little more appropriate than trying to get a camer in the coffin and getting vox pops from people who are either afflicted with terrible grief, and therefor should not be bothered, or are only there to get their gobs on the telly, and therefor should be flayed, rolled in hot rock salt and deep fried.

I can see it now.... "today's Italian GP coverage has been replaced with 3 hours of nigel mansell's coffin" (admittedly, even dead, ferret face would be more entertaining than modern F1, but you get the point)

Except, we don't celebrate F1 cos we don;t suck ass at it...1996 vs 1966...work it out.

PS: should the whinging dickhead croke just before monza, it wasn't me.

as i don't have digital cable anymore i only saw the pictures and accompanying coverage on bbc.co.uk. i do wonder if it was a bit OTT for a sports figure (even considering his undoubted importance to the game), but on the other hand, perhaps this funeral helped bring the people of northern ireland together?

AgentWood wrote: as i don't have digital cable anymore i only saw the pictures and accompanying coverage on bbc.co.uk. i do wonder if it was a bit OTT for a sports figure (even considering his undoubted importance to the game), but on the other hand, perhaps this funeral helped bring the people of northern ireland together?

for 10 mins...and the advantage was nulified by the rain....we don't do our heartfelt and passionate historical causes in the wet. :)

It wasn't even so much just the pictures that wound me, those I could cope with to an extent. It was the drivel, the repetative, unnecessary minutia being babbled like a stream of sould shipping abuse.

If you wanna talk big sporting funerals...i have only 4 words.

Ayrton Senna de Silva

when the NASCAR driver dale earnhardt was killed at daytona a few years ago you would've thought it was the end of the world in the southeastern united states. they still have numerous tributes to him and people drive around with his car's number in the back window of their car. it was a bit sad, though, as his son was driving in the same race and witnessed the crash from behind.

Now i'm not a big fan of Funerals on telly. And truth be told i couldnt be arsed dragging my sorry arse down to watch it, although I did catch the end of it.

At the end of the day, its pretty unanimous that George Best was at least one of the very best footballers these islands ever produced. Football being the most popular sport, i suppose its reasonably fair to have the funeral so that lots of people can watch it. And looking at the pictures of people in exchange square, and the overall reaction to his death, its seems fairly obvious that a lot of people did want the opportunity to say goodbye.

AgentWood wrote: when the NASCAR driver dale earnhardt was killed at daytona a few years ago you would've thought it was the end of the world in the southeastern united states. they still have numerous tributes to him and people drive around with his car's number in the back window of their car. it was a bit sad, though, as his son was driving in the same race and witnessed the crash from behind.

It's always a tragedy to lose a talent, but if I were a race driver, I think I'd rather die in a wall than an old bugger's home.

As for Dale, hmmmmm there are two things about that accident that people who loved him blank out. Firstly, the cause was more than 50-50 in his favour, he was trying to be a smart ass and block if memory serves (hey nothing wrong with being a retard in the closing stages of a race, they ALL do it). More importantly, he was an outspoken opponent of the HANS device, a system of tether's attached to a collet roiund the drivers whoulders ad his helmet. It's designed to stop the brain stem being torn from the spine by limiting the amount of force and movement (the thethers take the strain). dale, along with other drivers, felt that it restricted his ability to move or something daft. He was extremely vocal in his hatred of it and the proposal to make it mandatory. He even went as far as to say "over my dead body".

Well Dale my boy, like they say, be careful what you wish for, your death from a brainstem injury of the exact type the HANS would have prevented, pretty much selaed the deal on the thing being made compulary.

Personally, the death I'm waiting on, the one that will floor me, and reduce me to as many tears as any poor MU fan has been through lately, is Murray Walker, the f1 commentator. The sport has sucked donkey scrotes since he retired, and when he finally crokes i think everyone will lose heart and go work in a bank instead.

let me ask this BTW, suppose Ian had died only last week and HIS funeral had been turned into cheap TV like that?

Ian Curtis, I presume?

Uncle Liam wrote: Ian Curtis, I presume?

no ian fookin flemming. who'dya think?

Bloody hell Liam, didn;t anyone tell you not to drink the water over here?

Hey, I know a lot of Ian's.

Seeing as she's gettin' on a bit, you figure Lizzy II will get as much coverage when she croaks as Di did?

I remember all the coverage for Reagan, and how overdone it was. The only human moments were when Nancy and the kids showed their grief. That made me feel bad about cheering when I'd heard the news that the old buzzard's ticker finally quit. I guess I'm more of a viscious bastard than I thought :p