The Lady Diana thing

veronese68

CiB wrote:

...and I did find it a bit weepy but that's how my head works - I can get a bit emosh just seeing people in distress, whether it's homeless folk in flooded Yank towns or starving children in a famine zone or a parent explaining the death of her infant. It's a known fact that it's contagious and the sight of the procession being accompanied by wailing mourners had my eyes leaking a bit, but it was at their reactions to it not that Dianna was dead.

I get that and it's not a bad thing to feel a bit of empathy. Reminding me of something I saw recently by Robert Webb about why telling boys to man up is a bad thing as it causes repressed feelings which can lead to other issues, snippet below:

Robert Webb wrote:

What are we saying to a boy told to “man up” or to “act like a man”?

Often, we’re saying, “Stop expressing those feelings.” And if a boy hears that enough, it actually starts to sound uncannily like, “Stop feeling those feelings.”

It sounds like this: “Pain, guilt, grief, fear, anxiety: these are not appropriate emotions for a boy because they will be unacceptable emotions for a man. Your feelings will become someone else’s problem – your mother’s problem, your girlfriend’s problem, your wife’s problem. If it has to come out at all, let it come out as anger. You’re allowed to be angry. It’s boyish and man-like to be angry.”

surrey_commuter

CiB wrote:

I'll bite. The Sunday was an odd day, waking up to Jim Nauchtie on R4 and quickly grasping what had gone off. Trouble was there wasn't a lot to report on as nothing much changed beyond the initial news and I didn't follow it up, but did do my routine shouting at that c**t Blair on the tv when he did his bit of grabbing his share of the limelight with that awful awful speech outside of his church.

There was a bit of an atmosphere all week though, someone on Twitter recently got it right when he described it as tremendously exciting, all this news and the reaction to it and the fact that a Really Important Person has actually died and the whole world cares and is watching us, us British people dealing with it. I enjoyed that aspect of it a lot, esp seeing how the media and the peeeple were demanding that HM QE2 responded in the way The Sun etc demanded that she should, and how the snr royals nearly stuck it out for the week before they sadly caved in and came back to London to be seen to be correctly bothered about it all.

Funeral? I was a happy bachelor boy then and OH had said she wanted to to watch it on her own, which was great by me. I started watching though, and I did find it a bit weepy but that's how my head works - I can get a bit emosh just seeing people in distress, whether it's homeless folk in flooded Yank towns or starving children in a famine zone or a parent explaining the death of her infant. It's a known fact that it's contagious and the sight of the procession being accompanied by wailing mourners had my eyes leaking a bit, but it was at their reactions to it not that Dianna was dead. Then my mate from work showed up in a mood cos his wife was a blubbering mess so he thought he'd come and see me for some sanity. Sorry mate, wrong day He scooted off after about 10 mins.

It's been fun seeing it all again this week, and our kids asking what it was like and being able to give them the full info on what was a major part of British history. We have the same fun giving them the run-down on the collapse of the soviet bloc and the eastern European communist countries falling one by one, then the Berlin wall coming down and remembering seeing it on the news like it was yesterday when the guards stepped aside and the East Berliners started coming through.

Anyway.

and I guess that is where we differ - I see it as the sad death of a gormless bint

mrfpb

There were only two British news stories at the summing up of 1997 - the Labour landslide and the death and funeral of Diana. I think people here are being a bit revisionist. Diana was the most photographed person on the planet, and THE Royal story for about 5 years before her death. Private Eye called it best with their (pulled) cover about the media turning on a sixpence from hounding/demonising her to deifying her in the space of a week.

Blair still had massive goodwill and support in the country, and everyone I spoke to (including me) thought he handled the whole situation well. He was enjoying a long honeymoon period. It all looks a bit fake now, and it's hard to believe that as a country we acted like that - the whole thing looks fake, but it happened.

I thought of it a few years later when North Korea were going through mourning for their leader, and the commentators were saying how fake or forced the grief was, they had forgotten that we did the same thing. A friend of mine was in North Korea a few years later and was invited to (ie made to) visit the tomb of a deceased leader. The grief and worship he saw around the tomb was real. It was the same thing we (well a lot of us) did back then.

Personally I didn't know anyone at the time who didn't watch the funeral. It was event TV, though that sounds disrespectful. And Earl Spenser's speech was electrifying. As I say, we can look back and say "what the hell!" and be a bit bemused about our own behaviour, but the whole emotional rolercoaster was real at the time.

rolf_f

I just found it weird how many ordinary people got upset about the death of a privileged person they didn't know who and who would never have been interested in them or their lives in any meaningful way. The whole thing was a bit idiotic from beginning (an entirely unnecessary chase) to end (the cringeworthy displays of shallow grief). I wonder how the same event would have turned out today in the social media age. Probably rather worse!

I didn't watch the funeral. Just saw bits of it on the news. I doubt I'd watch the funeral of anyone I didn't know - rather boring. But then I don't hold much with funerals anyway.

dinyull

It's the same when a new royal is born....the incessant media coverage and the sad f*cks that camp outside.

Some people don't have anything better to do.

Will never understand the fascination with the royals and ordinary folk being sad/upset when they die.

oblongomaculatus

I remember getting up, wandering past the kitchen on the way out somewhere, and hearing from the radio that the Princess of Wales had died. Still half asleep, and having minimal interest in the Royal Family in any case, I spent the rest of the day believing this was the horsey one, Anne.

As for the hysteria, one of her sons said recently that at the time he couldn't understand the public reaction. I still can't. It's certainly startling, even shocking, when someone that well known dies suddenly and unexpectedly like that, but how so many people could confuse that feeling of shock with grief is still baffling. Thousands of people who had never even met her making special trips to London to lay flowers. Absolute madness, which the media have been doing their best to revive this last month or so, and during which the two other people who died in the crash haven't even been mentioned once, by the way.

mrfpb

It's also hard to see in retrospect how significant some of Diana's campaigns were, and how out of step they were with previous "work" by the Royals. The first public figure to meet and shake hands with a person suffering from AIDS when the media were treating it like some highly contagious "gay plague" and the later campaign against landmines.This is the stuff the Royals wouldn't have touched with a bargepole and made her more visible than most politicians or any other celebrity. It's more typical of the modern Royals, but it was Diana that changed the agenda.

The whole divorce campaign via media (Diana/Martin Bashir and Charles/Jonathan Dimbleby interviews) just sent the media into overdrive.

It's also possible (cycnical hat on) that the media went into grief overdrive as hundreds of editors, columnists and photographers were wondering where their income would come from without her.

mrfpb

And a bit more context, there was a bit of a social media grief storm just last year about how many celebrities were dying #Enough2016 and other less polite tags.

verylonglegs

I don't see people as being revisionist, it just appears you're more in tune with popular culture mrfpb.

mrfpb

verylonglegs wrote:

I don't see people as being revisionist, it just appears you're more in tune with popular culture mrfpb.

and I didn't own a bike in 1997!

slowmart

Down in Worthing with the now wife when I switched on the tv to catch the morning news.

BTW

Old sycophant ginger b0llocks makes me turn the volume down every time he's on the news

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Yeah but was she murdered on instruction from Phillip? Driver who never normally drank, a "broken" seat belt and the missing Fiat..... early reports said she had survived with minor injuries and being treated for such... why embalm her? was she pregnant from her muslim lover?
in life she was single handedly destroying the Royals, her death reinvented them, very handy.

20 years on, we are no nearer answering these vital questions

I heard it was all an early ploy by the Brexiteers. Imagine the headline:
Britain's most popular woman killed by a drunken French man driving a German tank'

Pross

I get the interest back at the time but not 20 years later. What I never understood was the millions in Hyde Park, many in tears, who had on the whole never met her, spoken to her or been directly affected by her and those who spent a fortune buying bouquets to leave in a pile in the street until they withered (something that has become commonplace ever since). I'm pretty ambivalent about the royals but I really get fed up with all this sort of thing. Young people die before their time in road collisions every day, there's a small memorial near my house to 4 young men who died about 15 years ago when their car crashed into a river and there's similar on a mountain where I ride to 6 teenagers. Sure, you expect media interest when it happens to a well known person and Diana was one of the most famous faces in the world but how they manage to make the 20th anniversary the lead story on my local news I just don't understand.

bianchimoon

When I heard a Princess had crashed, I wasn't surprised in the slightest, those old Austins were accidents waiting to happen

mfin

What I find annoying is how the "public reaction" has been categorised as one of grief. It is a sweeping generalisation and it was completely wrong then and is still being reported wrongly now.

Yes, a sub-section of the public were upset, but I would say a small subsection. It can be a small subsection even if it is millions of people, there are 65 million people in this country, so a few million can be quite a small minority, and this was.

I'd be 100% confident in saying the vast majority of people in this country were not bothered anywhere near enough to find it so emotionally tough they were moved to tears. There's no documentary saying that this week though is there?

These opinions can still stand alongside the recognition that the death of any young mother is sad, I don't think anyone would deny that unless doing so for effect.

veronese68

I was infinitely more upset when David Bowie died. I did listen to a bit more Bowie when he shuffled off and I did listen to a special about him on the radio. But I always liked his music so it could be argued that he did have an impact on my life. Seeing him live in '83 was part of my coming of age as well I guess.
But Lady Di popping her clogs really was of no interest at all.

andy9964

Veronese68 wrote:

I was infinitely more upset when David Bowie died.

As was I, when the non-royal Prince died. 2016 was a bad year for music

surrey_commuter

Andy9964 wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

I was infinitely more upset when David Bowie died.

As was I, when the non-royal Prince died. 2016 was a bad year for music

and for boxing - but did not feel the need to join in a collective outpouring of grief

veronese68

Surrey Commuter wrote:

- but did not feel the need to join in a collective outpouring of grief

No, nor did I. When I say infinitely more it's just that being a bit sad is infinitely more than not giving a monkeys.

surrey_commuter

mrfpb wrote:

There were only two British news stories at the summing up of 1997 - the Labour landslide and the death and funeral of Diana. I think people here are being a bit revisionist. Diana was the most photographed person on the planet, and THE Royal story for about 5 years before her death. Private Eye called it best with their (pulled) cover about the media turning on a sixpence from hounding/demonising her to deifying her in the space of a week.

Blair still had massive goodwill and support in the country, and everyone I spoke to (including me) thought he handled the whole situation well. He was enjoying a long honeymoon period. It all looks a bit fake now, and it's hard to believe that as a country we acted like that - the whole thing looks fake, but it happened.

I thought of it a few years later when North Korea were going through mourning for their leader, and the commentators were saying how fake or forced the grief was, they had forgotten that we did the same thing. A friend of mine was in North Korea a few years later and was invited to (ie made to) visit the tomb of a deceased leader. The grief and worship he saw around the tomb was real. It was the same thing we (well a lot of us) did back then.

Personally I didn't know anyone at the time who didn't watch the funeral. It was event TV, though that sounds disrespectful. And Earl Spenser's speech was electrifying. As I say, we can look back and say "what the hell!" and be a bit bemused about our own behaviour, but the whole emotional rolercoaster was real at the time.

very eloquently written but I could not be more bemused by the content.

Do you usually embrace collective events?

mamba80

mrfpb wrote:

There were only two British news stories at the summing up of 1997 - the Labour landslide and the death and funeral of Diana. I think people here are being a bit revisionist. Diana was the most photographed person on the planet, and THE Royal story for about 5 years before her death. Private Eye called it best with their (pulled) cover about the media turning on a sixpence from hounding/demonising her to deifying her in the space of a week.

Blair still had massive goodwill and support in the country, and everyone I spoke to (including me) thought he handled the whole situation well. He was enjoying a long honeymoon period. It all looks a bit fake now, and it's hard to believe that as a country we acted like that - the whole thing looks fake, but it happened.

I thought of it a few years later when North Korea were going through mourning for their leader, and the commentators were saying how fake or forced the grief was, they had forgotten that we did the same thing. A friend of mine was in North Korea a few years later and was invited to (ie made to) visit the tomb of a deceased leader. The grief and worship he saw around the tomb was real. It was the same thing we (well a lot of us) did back then.

Personally I didn't know anyone at the time who didn't watch the funeral. It was event TV, though that sounds disrespectful. And Earl Spenser's speech was electrifying. As I say, we can look back and say "what the hell!" and be a bit bemused about our own behaviour, but the whole emotional rolercoaster was real at the time.

You might have been, i was working at the Harefield at about 0230 when the news broke, listened to the story driving back home, the next morning, it was announced she was dead, my thought at the time (and it still hasnt changed) "what the fcuk was a mother of 2 young kids doing jet setting around the world?" she gave the press the bullets, then complained when they fired them back at her! as my mum used to say.

haydenm

I was 6 at the time, I was just annoyed there was no kids TV on that morning. I personally think it's fine to be shocked/upset when famous people die even if you'd never met them but people do go way over the top. I'd usually agree with the 'I didn't know her so why would I care' but then I wasn't a die hard fan of hers and I accept some people must have been. I did care a great deal when Chris Cornell or BB King died however, despite never having met them so I can't really belittle others

DeVlaeminck

I can't say it affected me any more than hearing any other young parent had been killed - I thought it was sad for the relatives but was somewhat bemused by the collective outpouring of grief. I remember at the time I played in a football team mostly made up if South and Central Americans and a couple of them carefully asked if I was upset, when I said not in the slightest they shared their puzzlement as to why anyone would be - they just assumed us Brits were all in mourning.

mrfpb

Surrey Commuter wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

stuff

very eloquently written but I could not be more bemused by the content.

Do you usually embrace collective events?

Not usually, but I was also trying to put across some context as all the preceding posts to mine were more or less a collective shrug. I think there is plenty of bemusment and embarassment (and possibly a bit of denial) at this distance after the event, which doesn't really explan how/why it happened.

DeVlaeminck

mrfpb wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

stuff

very eloquently written but I could not be more bemused by the content.

Do you usually embrace collective events?

Not usually, but I was also trying to put across some context as all the preceding posts to mine were more or less a collective shrug. I think there is plenty of bemusment and embarassment (and possibly a bit of denial) at this distance after the event, which doesn't really explan how/why it happened.

I don't think so, I really do think whoever wrote that 90% of the population didn't give a shit but 10% of 60 million is still a big number was right. Part of me actually wishes I could have bought in to the collective grief, I'm not mocking people for doing so but the majority didn't.

ben@31

mamba80 wrote:

Yeah but was she murdered on instruction from Phillip? Driver who never normally drank, a "broken" seat belt and the missing Fiat..... early reports said she had survived with minor injuries and being treated for such... why embalm her? was she pregnant from her muslim lover?
in life she was single handedly destroying the Royals, her death reinvented them, very handy.

20 years on, we are no nearer answering these vital questions

Would the royal family ever allow a Muslim baby born out of wedlock ? Or a Diana Al Fayed ? Even if there was foul play do you think they'd admit it in the investigation? As we know how well the Tony Blair war criminal investigation went.

webboo

I never got the puppy eyes with all that eye liner. Playing the victim all the time.
Probably a case of Borderline personality disorder.

ben@31

Webboo wrote:

I never got the puppy eyes with all that eye liner. Playing the victim all the time.
Probably a case of Borderline personality disorder.

She must have had a hard life. With that money for doing sweet f a, those properties and all those holidays.
I wonder if she ever struggled to pay the bills or had to cut the grass and do all the house work.

ben@31

mamba80 wrote:

Yeah but was she murdered on instruction from Phillip? Driver who never normally drank, a "broken" seat belt and the missing Fiat..... early reports said she had survived with minor injuries and being treated for such... why embalm her? was she pregnant from her muslim lover?
in life she was single handedly destroying the Royals, her death reinvented them, very handy.

20 years on, we are no nearer answering these vital questions

A more likely theory is that, given the number of flowers thrown at her hearse during the funeral, Diana was murdered by florists who wanted to boost sales.

mfin

mrfpb wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

mrfpb wrote:

stuff

very eloquently written but I could not be more bemused by the content.

Do you usually embrace collective events?

Not usually, but I was also trying to put across some context as all the preceding posts to mine were more or less a collective shrug. I think there is plenty of bemusment and embarassment (and possibly a bit of denial) at this distance after the event, which doesn't really explan how/why it happened.

It sounds as if you are stating there was an event, something that happened to absolutely everyone, like the media paints it. Maybe you're not, but it is a little implied.

There were very few people who were emotionally affected, a small subsection of the public. I think it is interesting to look into how and why psychologically those people mirrored and joined in on behaviour that appeared so weird to most people.

The media wouldn't let it go at the time though, maybe they brainwashed the susceptible into feeling down about it all with their unrelenting softly softly coverage at the time. I think the media played it all to effect, not capturing the mood of the country but painting it as they thought it should be painted.

If they had come and interviewed anyone I know at the time including friends and family of all generations, they wouldn't find one person that was upset, I never even met one at the time. They didn't do any of this though, so they perpetuated the faux sadness that was NOT "collective", the word they used so much.

I'm not saying people didn't have a right to be upset at the time, just that it seems anything but rational. If that is a fair conclusion, the documentaries would be better looking at "why did a small subsection of the public go all wacko and weird about it when the majority of people remained normal", but I suppose it's easier just to regurgitate the pictures and reports at the time to make a programme. Lazy really, and completely non-reflective of the TRUE average feelings of the public in my opinion.

So many people were annoyed by the unrelenting downbeat coverage at the time, I can remember very clearly being pissed off with it.

I don't think there is any denial or embarrassment going on in this thread.