Boxing great Ali’s death is all about me

As a white non-muslim from east Kent too young to actually remember any of his fights, Muhammad Ali changed my life. He left an indelible impression on me, he shaped my mind and my body (well, not my body). That bit when he changed his name from Cassius Clay and converted to Islam was particularly relevant to me. So his death on Saturday wasn’t about him. It was about me. I didn’t go on to Facebook to talk about his fights, mind you. Boxing is barbarous and savage and should be banned. No, no, no. I talked about Ali’s forays into public life, his refusal to go to Vietnam, that black politics stuff when he swanned around with Malcolm X, his battle with Parkinson’s. The world is a richer place now that I’ve been able to use Muhammad Ali’s death to talk about myself. I’m the great one here. I mean, who would go to the lengths of finding a video, a quote or a picture of Ali and using it to make a point about themselves? Me, that’s who. I did the same with David Bowie and Prince and Ronnie Corbett and Victoria Wood and that bloke from Die Hard. I’ll do it again soon. Famous people’s deaths are my drugs. I can’t get enough of them.

We know Waitrose in Canterbury is the place for aspiring middle classes. As such, they expect high standards – and the St George’s Place store is happy to oblige. In the liquor aisle, it offers tasting notes – even on Special Brew. Yup, “Spesh”, the 9% beer made by Carlsberg which contains 4.5 units of alcohol in a single can and is popular among Canterbury’s street drinking community. Waitrose tells us: “Stronger lager with cognac flavour. Full bodied fruity tasting with a good clean bitterness.”