Bez can shake his maracas all he wants, but unfortunately they do not make debts disappear. The Happy Mondays' dancer has been declared bankrupt for the second time, it has emergedThe Inland Revenue filed a bankruptcy petition against Mark Berry - Bez's duller, un-Madchester name, on February 7. It was granted on the decidedly unhappy Monday, March 31.It's now up to the Official Receiver to decide how much Bez can pay, and which creditors will benefit.
Bez was first bankrupted in August 2004, following which he signed up for Celebrity Big Brother. Against all odds, he shimmied and schemed his way to the £50,000 grand prize. "Now I can just pay my bills and walk straight with no stress," he said then.More encouraging still, the Happy Mondays reformed and even released an album, Uncle Dysfunktional, last year.And yet clearly things have not been so rosy as all that. Last April, Bez was denied a visa to enter the USA, and later in the year he was found guilty of a driving offence. More worrying still, Bez is described in court papers not just as a musician, but also as a "journalist" - a job that only a desperate man would take up.Speaking to the Manchester Evening News after the Big Brother win, Bez explained that financial strife was "nothing new and it's never been a worry. The day I have to go and get a normal job, I'll give up."Alas the time may have come for Bez to pack it in and take the gig at Tesco.
