David Beckham’s guide to celebrity

In 2004 this columnist visited a school near Basra in southern Iraq. The affable boys seemed to know four words of English. Two were obscenities. The other two were “David Beckham”.

Not long before, recounts “Beckham”, a new documentary series, the Sun newspaper claimed to have found the only person on the planet who hadn’t heard of Mr Beckham: a shepherd in Chad. The four-part series on Netflix is a portal to the flighty years around the turn of the millennium when the footballer was in his sporting pomp. Watch closely and it is also, for the ambitious, a handy how-to guide to becoming a celebrity and ultimately a global brand.