Читать книгу Notorious: The Maddest and Baddest Sportsmen on the Planet - Richard Bath - Страница 10

Forced to retire from football at 21 (‘three sevens, an important number in my view’ he said mysteriously) because of premature rheumatoid arthritis, Hereford goalkeeper David Icke went on to become a household name as a soccer TV presenter for twelve years. Then, in 1990, he went mad. Absolutely bonkers, in fact. Declaring that he was ‘the son of Godhead’, he went on to outline quasi-religious beliefs that were more Ron L Hubbard than Glenn Hoddle.

His epiphany was nothing if not amusing. He went onto Wogan, dressed from head to foot in turquoise, and told the genial Irishman that: ‘in the 1980s when I was a BBC presenter there was this presence close to me. I thought someone else was there. I went to a psychic and she said I would be world famous and was the Son of God—and there I was, presenting the snooker.’ Not surprisingly Wogan was a little sceptical and pointed out that the audience were laughing.

‘The best way of removing negativity,’ Icke said, ‘is to laugh and be joyous, Terry. So I am glad that there has been so much laughter in the audience tonight.’

‘They’re not laughing with you! They’re laughing at you!’ replied an incredulous Wogan.

Among Icke’s more choice utterances was that he had received ‘channelled messages’ from both a Chinese mandarin, Wang Yee Lee, and from Socrates. He also reckons that the world had been taken over by 12ft blood-drinking, child-abusing alien lizards (the Queen is one, so was her Mum, and so are George Bush, Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie). So convinced is he of this that in the wake of the World Trade Center bombings he published a book called Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster: Why the official story of 9/11 is a monumental lie in which he outlined an elaborate conspiracy theory about the events of that day, arguing that it was carefully staged by high-ranking members of the Illuminati (reptilian bloodline), including George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Tony Blair. ‘Reptiles run the world. I have had dozens of people telling me they’ve seen important people turning into reptilian humanoid figures. They have nodules on their head and drink human blood, mainly of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people.’ When asked about his claim that the Queen is a lizard who drinks human blood and enjoys child sacrifice, he replied: ‘If it’s not true take me to court. Let’s have it out.’

Other nutty pronouncements include the revelation that the planet earth vibrates at the same velocity as turquoise; that Arran, a small and perfectly respectable island off the west coast of Scotland, would fall off the end of the world and into the sea in 1997; and that the Sahara would blossom once more. Not surprisingly, Arran is still as dry as a temperance meeting and the Sahara’s still fairly sandy.

Icke’s work has involved a great deal of travel in which he has been ‘leaving stones and pieces of wood in different places to help unlock the combination set up by Arthur, Avola, and Merlin and so release the Green Dragon energies to the heart chakras of the planet’. We may not know what he’s talking about, but the Muans did—they were our predecessor race, who had thin bodies with ‘little hair’ and long, white soft gowns, and who ‘did away with themselves by getting overawed by the spirits of rocks.’

Icke has grown increasingly potty since 1991, setting up a cult on the Isle of Wight and issuing eye-wateringly amusing edicts. As with all sensible latter-day yogis, most of his followers seem to be young, blonde, and female. So maybe there is a method in his rather extreme form of madness. The turquoise-clad one was last seen presenting Headfuck, a late night session of weird film clips and music videos on the Sci-Fi channel while simultaneously pretending not to exist any more. ‘David Icke does not exist,’ said David Icke. ‘My name is just a name for what my infinite consciousness is experiencing.’ Quite.