Friday 31 August 2007

Let Me Out

According to all the news headlines today, something momentous has happened. Yes, it's true. Princess Diana is still dead!

I'm not quite sure what all the fuss is about. When someone dies, you mourn their passing and celebrate their life with a funeral and maybe a memorial service. Then you get over it. It may be sooner or later, depending upon how close you are to the person, but "time heals all wounds" and all that.

And to keep their memory alive you visit their grave, or look at keepsakes, on important anniversaries, like their birthday, or Christmas, or the day they died.

But these memorials are private. They are to remember how this person made you feel personally. To remember the things you did together, and to pay tribute to them as a parent, child, lover or friend.

So what I don't get is, why the big public fuss over the anniversary of Diana's death? There was a big enough fuss when she died. Too big. The country became hysterical and people who normally found it impossible to get worked-up or emotional about anything were screaming, sobbing and hurling flowers onto hearses like the world was about to end.

But it didn't end. We're all still here.

I'm sure that, to her friends, Diana was a warm and lovely person. But it's also obvious that she was a very shrewd and powerful manipulator of the press. And the world media simply lapped it up. That's why, 10 years on, we've got yet another memorial service. And let's not forget there was a memorial concert a couple of months ago. So, TWO memorials in one year. Geez!. Looks like her sons may have inherited that talent for self-publicity...

[Yeah, I know, when you're an heir to the throne it's not like you have to beg for publicity, but...]

That's why today I won't be remembering Diana and I won't be celebrating all the things she did for me, because, well, she didn't do anything for me and I didn't know her.

Oh, bugger! Does posting this mean that I am now ON the bandwagon? Have I fallen for it? Damn!

4 comments:

chux said...

i agree it was sad at the time - but enough is enough. Have a statue or something for those who would like it. Its only right that a significant person gets that. All this media attention though has got to stop.

I think the british press are hoping to make this our version of the shooting of JFK.

Anonymous said...

9/11 changed everything. Never forget!

...oh, sorry. Wrong death fetish.

Chris said...

pt, you're a very wicked boy and you won't go to heaven saying all those naughty things about a saint!

Beats me how someone who ended up like an Essex girl slapper was (and is) perceived as some sort of virginal paragon.

Delmonti said...

I consider myself a bit of a royal-ist.... but I've never liked the public version of Diana.

I mean, lobbing yaself down the stairs to get attention?..... like you NEED attention when you're next up for Lizies job

Manipulating hag that she was.

(I've no doubt she was a wonderful mother tho. She probably hand picket the nanny)