Black Friday

George Best has died, from alcoholism. I don't know why this has made such an impact on me; maybe because he was a throwback to another era where a talented, gorgeous, witty, womanizing bad boy was feted, and not manicured into some milquetoast, uncontroversial Ken doll. And there's something tragic and mesmerizing about having such talent and squandering it. Someone like him is the antithesis to the grim, Puritanical, joyless striving that seems to be so endemic to our times, and I wish there were more like him.

His liver transplant was pretty controversial, especially as it became apparent he could not stop drinking. And now the NHS is proposing banning hip and knee replacements for the obese. Is this the thin (no pun intended) end of the wedge? This seems unfair - hip or knee replacement is no picnic, and deciding who is 'too fat' for surgery seems so subjective. Somehow, the concept of fat-but-fit does not seem to have cottoned on. I personally believe the rise in obesity is a direct result of the rise in dieting and people over-eating out of guilt, and I think this punitive, judgemental attitude towards heavy people is horrible, and guaranteed to make matters worse.

Anyway, my recommendation for a quick ego-boost is to look at your E-Bay feedback scores. Wow! I'm a great e-bayer! Super communicator! A++++! TRUST ME I am THE BEST! I can't help it, it just makes me feel better reading them, maybe because they're so over the top.

I was looking at Salon the other day (the unpremium version), and I had to watch an ad before the ad you have to watch to enter Salon. That just seems unfair. I really hate the pre-mercials (yes, that's what they're called) where they have a link that's something like 'Click here to learn more' that appears about 30 seconds before the link to Salon appears. So often I click that in anticipation of the one to get into Salon and have to watch some junk about Lexus or Marriott hotels or some other company I am certain not to patronize. I should just pony up the thirty-five bucks for Premium - but hey, I'm Scottish.