Better Fred than read

Virgin Atlantic do their best to alleviate the fidgety tedium of a long-haul flight with some half-decent movies, some re-heated but generally top-notch comedy and a bunch of music channels to suit most tastes.

But I draw the line at excerpts of Andrew Flintoff’s ghost-written autobiography Being Freddie read aloud being classed as audio entertainment in the same bracket as Johnny Cash or the opera singer Andrea Bocelli.

It sounded a duff idea from the start but in the interests of research, I decided to give Freddie a go. Sadly it’s not Freddie, of course, but an actor (I’m guessing here because I’d never heard of him) with a Mancunian accent so strong that I thought I was being read a bedtime story by Liam Gallagher. Sorry to be pedantic but Flintoff’s not from Manchester and he has rather a charming north Lancashire burr rather than that distinctive, urban twang which gives the listener stuff like “And then ah scored a centureh against Leicestershoh”. And also Murali is pronounced Moorahli, which really wound me up.

I’ve not read the book myself but I’m sure it’s an efficiently adequate work of its kind. But reading it out loud? Come on, it’s hardly Truman Capote, or indeed Fred Trueman come to that.

Still it tells you what Being Freddie is all about: Being Famous.

Fame is all relative of course and I was childishly excited by the sight at the immigration desk of a former English footballer called Mark Dennis. For those of you unfamiliar with his deeds, Dennis played for a number of clubs including Birmingham City and was renowned (which clearly isn’t the right word) for being a ‘proper’ hard man. In today’s entertainment-conscious age where skilful players are revered rather than ravaged, he’d never have stayed on the pitch for long, not that he was any stranger to early baths in those men-were-men days of the early 80s. I’ve seen him before at the cricket, mostly at Hampshire, shirt off, beer in hand so he’s obviously a committed fan.

He looked just like any other punter. And he was travelling Economy. Now that dates him. No footballer of the last decade or so would have to slum it like that. They’d probably hire their own jet.