Flintoff & bulimia

This is something of a first for me as I’m not so much reviewing a programme I have seen but explaining why I will not be watching one.

The editor was comfortable with this.

As he put it: “On the Rust anything goes …”

I cannot  imagine why the BBC should make a programme featuring an eating disorder of a celebrity.

I asked Duggie Heath about Flintoff as cricketer.

He said he was a  very good all rounder but not in the class of Ian Botham or Ben Stokes. His age was 2003-2008.

He did well in the Ashes series of 2005 under the captaincy of Michael Vaughan. His own captaincy was marred by being drunk in a pedalo in the Caribbean and a 5-0 whitewash defence of the Ashes.

On retiring from cricket he tried his hand at boxing, modelling suits and broadcasting but basically took the celebrity career path.

One can imagine his management team recommending a programme on bulimia. No doubt there will be a dietician, psychoanalyst, assuredly there will be Freddie who did not apparently tell his wife about his condition.

His wealth is estimated at £11.5 m so he does not need the money.

A programme not focussed on one individual but the problem of depression in cricket which has afflicted Marcus Trescothick, Mike Vardy and Jonathan Trott – with contributions from articulate cricketers like Mike Atherton and Simon Hughes – would be of greater interest and appeal.

This conflation of celebrity and mental issues is very much a feature of our times.

Those who have made it through adversity and achieved success in their field do not get much airtime.