When it comes to being conned, we Brits are up there on a
grassy knoll of our own.
The Zinoviev Letter, Neville Chamberlain's piece of paper,
the Iraq Dossier and, of course, the Vanessa Show being
prime examples of how a gullible people willingly believed
in something that turned out to be not quite the full
shilling. And we never learn.
How can anybody read extracts from David Beckham's
completely unnecessary scream for cash and sympathy (sorry,
autobiography) without seeing him as a weak, disloyal, image-
obsessed wimp who cannot take criticism from his boss
without sulking away to choke back the tears and plot
vengeance, while his mum storms in with her handbag?
In it he repays the care, riches and devotion lavished on
him by Manchester United by spilling dressing-room secrets
and kicking his former boss in the teeth - three months
after he left in a move his agents had been sounding out for
some time.
So an enraged Sir Alex Ferguson kicked a boot, which
accidentally hit him on the head? So what? They had just
lost a cup-tie to Arsenal. He had every right to lose his
rag. Especially with a man incapable of taking criticism and
paid £90,000 a week to underperform.
The most appalling aspect of this row was Beckham's decision
to arrange for a photographer to snap him the next day with
his hair dragged back by an Alice band, showing off his cut.
That is snide, conniving treachery. But you won't read about
that. Just as you won't read him thanking Fergie for bravely
standing up for him when the knives were out after his World
Cup sending-off.
The trouble with Beckham is he has been surrounded by so
much hype and so many yes-men, he can't take the truth, even
from more experienced pros. Fergie and Hoddle had it in for
him because they wrongly saw his wife as a distraction, he
reckons.
Yet this was a woman who so demanded his attention she would
phone him up in the dressing-room at half-time to bark at
him.
We know he loves his kids and wife, doesn't take drugs or
screw women. But thanks to this book we also know he is a
disloyal, paranoid, back-stabbing, money-grabbing, gutless,
under-the-thumb, pampered weirdo, living in a self-confessed
bubble. Michael Jackson with all the facial bits in the
right place.