EEE by gum, that Gordon Sumner lad from Newcastle is a talented un all right. For a man with such a short, sharp nickname, Sting (for it is he) has a pretty range of abilities, singing, playing bass, acting, kicking a football around and even (allegedly) having sex for five hours at a time.
In fact, just thinking about the 45 year old Geordie's enormous achievements would leave any normally endowed person feeling a little out of breath. Strange, then, that instead of earning greater honour and glory for sealing the heights of excellence, all Sting ever gets is a lot of cynical snickering.
When he started the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to high«MDBO» «MDNM»Flight the plight of the Kayapo Indians, whose homelands in the Brazilian rain forest were under threat, he was roundly guffawed at. After the laughter died down, his motives for trying to save the rain forest were then seriously questioned.
When he boasted earlier this year that yoga techniques enabled him to perform "tantric sex" for hours on end, the laughter sign lit up again and the jokes came thick and fast.
But what must really rankle with the former teacher from Tyne and Wear is the way his music has been kicked around, head butted and generally stomped into the ground by the critics. This despite the fact that he is undisputedly one of the most accomplished musicians in rock. It seems like, the better he gets at his chosen craft, the more cruel the reviews become.
Indeed, if the music press is to be believed, Sting's entire solo career is merely a meandering, jazzy diversion from the straight path of pop, and albums like The Soul Cages, Ten Summoner's Tales and his latest, Mercury Falling, are the self indulgent twiddlings of a musician who's gone and arpeggiated up his own derriere.
One famously nasty review of The Soul Cages in Melody Maker concluded with a brief, vulgar reference to self abuse, summing up the contempt which that critic obviously felt for the man's body of work.
Sting first buzzed into our world in 1977 as one third of punked up white reggae band, The Police, and Roxanne was our first aural encounter with his unique, high register warble. Record buyers were stung into action by the band's cool, direct, three pronged approach and bleached blond hair, and it was not long before The Police became the biggest thing on pop precinct.
The bass playing front man was also the band's main songwriter, and over the next few years, Sting penned more than hit records and five number ones for the constabulary titled three piece, winning Ivor Novello awards for Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic and Every Breath You Take.
The Police reached their zenith with 1983's Synchronicity, but before they could consolidate their triumph, the peroxide haired trio were pulled apart by Sting's increasing involvement in various solo projects.
While in The Police, Sting had already begun to pursue his acting career, getting a cameo part in the film of The Who's Quadrophenia, and starring in the Dennis Potter written film Brimstone And Treacle. He even had a solo hit record with his cover version of Spread A Little Happiness, from the film's soundtrack.
By the time the Police finally turned in their badges, he had performed on the Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas?, starred in David Lynch's flop film of Frank Herbert's Dune and split up with his wife, Irish born actress Frances Tomelty.
Fired up with a renewed interest in jazz (he had played in various jazz rock combos before The Police), Sting recorded his first solo album, The Dream Of The Blue Turtles, in 1985, assembling a backing group of jazz musicians, including Kenny Kirkland, Darryl Jones, Omar Hakim, Wynton Marsalis and Branford Marsalis, at Eddie Grant's Blue Wave Studios in Barbados.
Songs like If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Love Is The Seventh Wave and Fortress Around Your Heart wore their jazz influences proudly, loudly and intricately proclaiming a new direction far removed from the familiar Police beat.
Far from shrugging their shoulders in bafflement and giving Sting's jazzy noodlings a wide berth, the record buying public took the Blue Turtles to their hearts, keeping the album in the charts for over a year.
During its 12 month tenure, Sting found time to duet with Phil Collins on Long, Long Way To Go, appear on Miles Davis's album, You're Under Arrest, star as Frankenstein in The Bride and opposite Meryl Streep in Plenty, and add his voice to Dire Straits' smash hit, Money For Nothing.
If Sting's solo crowd pulling, ability was ever in doubt, those doubts were swept aside by his first British tour, which culminated in six sold out nights at London's Royal Albert Hall. Since then, the concert crowds have got bigger, the critics' knives have got longer and Sting's skin has, of necessity, got thicker.
He weathered the ridicule which greeted his rain forest initiative, he recovered from the deaths of both parents in 1987, he retrieved most of £6 million which his former accountant embezzled from him and he has survived the endless negative press which seems to dog his every career and personal move.
Tomorrow night, Sting brings his work to Dublin's Point Theatre for the first of three concerts. The last time he performed here was back in the Blue Turtles days, when he did two shows at the Stadium, and before that in 1979, when The Police played a legendary gig ill Leixlip Castle, supported by U2.
This time round, Sting has a bigger repertoire to choose from and he's bound to include such hit singles as We'll Be Together, All This Time, If I Ever Lose My Faith In You, Mad About You and Englishman In New York in his set list. No doubt he'll also delve into the Police files and dust off that jazzy version of Roxanne. He might even bring a member of the audience onstage to do a duet with him.
"I don't think I've ever been the darling of a particular group of people," he told Q magazine recently. "I don't think I have a constituency. I sell a lot of records and tickets, but I don't in an amazing amount of devotion. People like my records, I don't get stalked, I don't chased down the street."
Say no more, Squire, say no more.
