[patrick boo]

I want this week's Boopoll to be a wider discourse on the trappings of fame, the duty of talent and the nature of celebrity. Do you think you're up to that?

So, the runners and riders...

1. A footballer who was blessed with almost superhuman skills, many say the greatest ever, even though he never played in a world cup. Pissed his best years away and many say he wasted his gifts. Also, as a footnote, on his death did he deserve the posthumus adulation, a man who beat his wife and abused a transplanted liver?

2. Probably popular culture's best known 'nearly man'. Original member of the most successful band of all time, kicked out just before they made it big. Couldn't handle the obvious feelings that stirred up and attempted suicide twice before turning his life around. Now makes a decent living on a name now synonymous with being so close to glory but ending up in the gutter. The Pete Best band are touring constantly.

3. Someone living in a big shadow. Despite this, a man with, it seems, no discernible talents or skills becomes famous. This is no big thing, you may say, in this age where you just need to go on a TV show and do nothing to become famous... but this guy didn't even have to do nothing! He's just famous by being a relation to somebody, an accident of birth -he's like a member of the royal family, except you don';t have to pay for him.

So what do these three say about us as a society? And which is truly the most tragic? Someone who has it all and throws it away, someone who almost has it all but has it snatched from them, or someone who is nothing and is happy making a living being so?
Hm? Hm?