Mark "Chopper" Read has died

Just saying like.

Good.

Fascinating character by all accounts, read quite a bit about him before the film came along, which was excellent. Eric Bana nailed it.

A flawed character yet also a cultural icon. A proper old fashioned gangster like Britain used to make when we were great, and a loss to his family, I recall he has a young son who he was very close to.

I think that its hard not to respect the man, particularly given both his own take on his fame and his refusal to accept a transplant because it might deprive someone more deserving of the opportunity.

”I don’t want anyone looking at me and hero-worshipping me… I’m not someone to hero-worship for Christ’s f—ing sake, I wouldn’t wish my life on my worst enemy.”

Who?

Good.

By all accounts he was reformed after being released from prison and went on to become an author and artist. He died aged 58 from cancer.

And it’s a good thing he died?

ninfan – Member
A proper old fashioned gangster like Britain used to make when we were great,

He certainly knew how to treat a female impersonator.

ninfan – Member
A flawed character

sounds more like a nasty scumbag to me…

He later graduated to kidnapping and torturing members of the criminal underworld, often using a blowtorch or bolt cutters to remove the toes of his victims as an incentive for them to produce enough money so that Read would leave them alive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopper_Read

Only 58 – clearly he needed to harden the f*** up!

By all accounts he was reformed after being released from prison and went on to become an author and artist.

He tortured and murdered (depending on which account you believe) anything from four to nineteen people. His writing career meant that he profited from his crime. Maybe it is wrong to say ‘good’ about anybody dying, but this ‘Nuts’/’FHM’ glorification of psychos like this makes me quite tetchy. You admire him if you like – I’d rather admire someone who had a shit childhood like him, yet somehow managed to make something of themself without using a blowtorch or bolt croppers on other people.

By all accounts he was reformed after being released from prison and went on to become an author and …

..cashing in on his scumbag background…

The film is well worth a watch if you haven’t seen it. Eric Bana’s performance is outstanding. Based on that film he’s a great actor its a shame he doesn’t seem to have been in a role he’s been able to get his teeth into in the same way since.

“Strewth Neville, it’s a bit early to be 6 feet under”

… think that its hard not to respect the man….

On the contrary, it’s very easy.

A proper old fashioned gangster like Britain used to make when we were great

seriously? why deification of people who are thugs, criminals, murderers and thieves?
lots of column inches when Ronnie Biggs died but what about Jack Mills the train driver who got hit on the head with an iron bar? nobody cares about him because he’s not a ‘loveable rogue’
anyone who thinks these cretins were great needs to experience the violence they dished out on the innocent to enlighten themselves.
maybe they need tapping on the head with an iron bar too, might nock some sense into their thick skulls.

You admire him if you like – I’d rather admire someone who had a shit childhood like him, yet somehow managed to make something of themself without using a blowtorch or bolt croppers on other people.

How boring is that…

Plus, the kids in this city certainly don’t look up to people who have ‘made something of themselves’ in a legal way.

The likes of Chopper Reid are role models to huge numbers of young kids etc, both through their life of crime and latterly showing that people can also do something else too. Maybe it’s different in ‘Middle England’, but rightly or wrongly, when we were growing up we looked up to people like Curtis Warren, and the big local crime families, people who’d made huge fortunes and reputations through crime and violence, that’s who we wanted to be like, not the fool who worked all day long for years and years, regardless of how wealthy they were. When you get older you realise that maybe it’s a bit silly, but for lots of urban dwelling youths, figures such as Chopper Reid a role models nonetheless.

when we were growing

i think you need to define “we”

rogg – Member
Good.

+1

No great loss to the world.

How boring is that…

oh i don’t know i think i would happily suffer the tedium of not being tied to a chair, beaten, shot and buried under a motorway.

maybe it’s a bit silly

maybe? 😯 🙄

T’was ever thus – Ned Kelly, Billy the Kid, Dick Turpin…

Erics performance in Chopper was class, a must watch movie. You couldn’t help but like the character, despite what you would normally think of the criminal world.

Having his ear chopped of in prison was comedy gold..

You admire him if you like

I don’t admire him in the slightest.

I just find it bizarre that someone can feel “good” about someone dying from cancer

loddrik – Member

You admire him if you like – I’d rather admire someone who had a shit childhood like him, yet somehow managed to make something of themself without using a blowtorch or bolt croppers on other people.

How boring is that…

Plus, the kids in this city certainly don’t look up to people who have ‘made something of themselves’ in a legal way.

I blame the parents.

The likes of Chopper Reid are role models to huge numbers of young kids etc, both through their life of crime and latterly showing that people can also do something else too. Maybe it’s different in ‘Middle England’, but rightly or wrongly, when we were growing up we looked up to people like Curtis Warren, and the big local crime families, people who’d made huge fortunes and reputations through crime and violence, that’s who we wanted to be like, not the fool who worked all day long for years and years, regardless of how wealthy they were.

Well, I’m 44 and from one of the roughest parts of Manchester.
I knew quite a few people who thought that way.
Many of them grew up to be drug dealing, thieving scum like the people they admired.
Stealing from their own, polluting the environment, contributing nothing.

The rest of us were taught right from wrong and tried to behave accordingly.
Didn’t always succeed, because it was tougher than the alternative, but at least we tried, eh?

I just find it bizarre that someone can feel “good” about someone dying from cancer

i find it bizarre that someone can feel “good” about someone killing innocent people and stealing their money.

but it’s a funny old world 😕

Yet Nelson Mandela is fetted as a hero. But he is a convicted killer
Er double standards anyone

Excellent comparison there Sancho. Well done!

Two people both convicted of of crimes both reformed yet people treat them different I think it’s a very good comparison

Obviously! 😆

To be fair, Nelson wasn’t a convicted killer – just a convicted terrorist, apparently they only blew up electricity sub stations and power networks.

But then Chopper wasn’t convicted of killing anyone either 8)

yeah that chopper bloke really strove for the emancipation of the oppressed.

Doesn’t matter what he stood for they both turned their backs on their violent pasts
Yet people are not prepared to forgive one v the other

Mandela just sat there and cashed in on his violent past, whereas Chopper went all out of his way to change things in his country for the better. Hmm…. yeah, I can see the double standards now.

In fact I was at the free Chopper Read concert at Wembley.
Or it might have been the other bloke.

Good answer lol you just can’t think hard enough to understand can you

i find it bizarre that someone can feel “good” about someone killing innocent people and stealing their money.

not sure you could class Drug dealers an ‘innocent’

just saying. Liked the film, liked his book. he’s not a role model to me, but i don’t agree with the sentiment that it’s good he’s dead.

i find it bizarre that someone can feel “good” about someone killing innocent people and stealing their money.

Except I never said I felt “good” about his criminal behaviour. 🙄

Glorification of gangster boils my p1ss…..

Aside from Norman Stanley Flecther they are all ****, the lot of them.

Just get your nut down, work hard and get on with life

Any of you muppets who buy/watch/read or in anyway subscribe to this sh1te don’t ever come on here moaning your bike’s been nicked.

I’ll be reading this next

whereas Chopper went all out of his way to change things in his country for the better.

Well, for a start there was the TV campaign against domestic violence:

And then there was the children’s literacy campaign:

Brilliant lol still not thinking