Diana 20 years

[pErvinalia]

I remember when she died. There was wall to wall coverage and I thought it would never end. Thankfully Pat Rafter won the US Tennis open and put a stop to that (in Australia at least).

[Animavore]

I remember when she died. I woke up after drinking a bottle of vodka the night before in a right state and all the TV stations were talking about something terrible and tragic and I thought World War 3 was about to start and it was nearly 15 minutes before I could finally find out what this cataclysmic event was and it was only that the Princess of Wales had died as if I, an Irish person, could give a first fuck about a member of the Royal Family.

Was not happy about such urgent sounding reporting putting the shits up me in the state I was in. And was not happy that a film I was looking forward to that night was changed because it involved a car crash (I actually only finally saw it this year. It was called Body Parts. It was shit.).

[Brian Peacock]

...she was far darker, more vindictive and dangerous than he ever was.

You have just managed to do what I regarded as impossible: kindle my interest in Diana, so I'd like you to provide some relevant, credible and freely accessible reading material. Thank you in advance.

Isn't the fact that they had to bury her in a Y-shaped coffin evidence enough?

[Rum]

The most interesting part of the whole sorry tail I would say was the public response to her death. It was maybe the first occurrence of a huge outpouring of hysterical unfounded and essentially empty grief from the public, encouraged by a manipulative press. The level of imagined and perhaps actual grief was to me really quite shocking. Millions of people acted as if they knew her or had some real connection to her. It was almost embarrassing to witness.

[Svartalf]

personnally, from Paris where the hullaballoo was nearly as big, due to it being, you know, the place, it was just unsufferable, stuff I simply could not care about unless I was handsomely paid to being forced down my ears...

[devogue]

...she was far darker, more vindictive and dangerous than he ever was.

You have just managed to do what I regarded as impossible: kindle my interest in Diana, so I'd like you to provide some relevant, credible and freely accessible reading material. Thank you in advance.

By the eminent journalist Nicholas Wapshott:

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.newswe ... ml%3famp=1

Penny Junor:

https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&sourc ... 7SG-buaMgQ

[Hermit]

...she was far darker, more vindictive and dangerous than he ever was.

You have just managed to do what I regarded as impossible: kindle my interest in Diana, so I'd like you to provide some relevant, credible and freely accessible reading material. Thank you in advance.

By the eminent journalist Nicholas Wapshott:

https://www.google.co.nz/amp/www.newswe ... ml%3famp=1

Penny Junor:

https://www.google.co.nz/url?sa=t&sourc ... 7SG-buaMgQ

From the first link I get

"Diana set out on a reckless course of vengeance"

"a wily intelligence"

"Her love affair ... were designed to humiliate a powerful state institution"

"Diana assumes that most of the audience has swallowed the fiction that the princess was an innocent party..."

"Far from hating being hounded by the paparazzi, she constantly tipped them off about where she would be."

At least the last bit is a testable claim. Pity it was not tested. The rest of the article gets no better in providing actual evidence supporting the view that she was far darker and vindictive than Charles. And no wonder. You confused a film review with investigative reportage.

The second link goes to a Daily Mail article reviewing a book serialised in the Daily Mail. Got evidence to support the assertion that the kindy teacher was "an unsatisfactory and manipulative mother, prone to tantrums, self-indulgence and jealousy"? Let's see now.

"she sacked nanny Barbara Barnes when William was four because she envied their strong bond"

"Diana was reluctant to warn William, then 13, about her infamous Panorama interview in 1995."

"Diana was unwittingly recreating the tension of her own childhood."

And so fucking on.

You are manifestly incapable of providing evidence for your presumably considered opinion that the princess was "far darker, more vindictive and dangerous", and my interest in her has vanished now that it has become obvious that talk about her seems to be limited to scuttlebutt and wild flights of fancy. So, let's just forget the issue. I apologise for asking. Well, perhaps not apologise, but in retrospect I am definitely sorry I asked.

Some of your Facebook friends might be interested in your considered opinion regarding the princess though. Gossip about royalty is a perennial favourite among the hoi polloi.

[Brian Peacock]

The most interesting part of the whole sorry tail I would say was the public response to her death. It was maybe the first occurrence of a huge outpouring of hysterical unfounded and essentially empty grief from the public, encouraged by a manipulative press. The level of imagined and perhaps actual grief was to me really quite shocking. Millions of people acted as if they knew her or had some real connection to her. It was almost embarrassing to witness.

But while you and I, and The Queen (God Bless her), might have been embarrassed, others were genuinely shocked and moved - many others. I don't think one can so easily dismiss their feelings as unfounded and empty grief - it was grief, for somebody they had never met I'll grant, but grief all the same.

I was working in Convent Garden the evening of her funeral. Frankly I was dreading getting to work because the city had seen a huge influx of people for the funeral, but by 7pm the whole of central London was dead. I mean really dead - like a 60s film dead. Quiet roads, empty pavements, empty pubs, and the restaurant where I was playing turned the closed sign over at 9:30 and the manager got the cheaper plonk up from the cellar and told the chef to cook up that evening's fare for the staff. I'll always remember her funeral because it was the first time I'd had monkfish tails in white wine with scallops, and three puddings. And by midnight and hometime I even took the lift down to the empty platform at Covent Garden tube, where usually I'd have taken the very (very) long staircase down to avoid the drunken scrum at the top.

[Rum]

What is grief? Looking at a few definitions they more or less agree on "deep and poignant distress caused by or as if by bereavement". Perhaps the 'as if' part of the definition applies here, because although some of the feelings may have been genuine very few people would have any direct emotional connection with the woman. It was like some sort of horrible mass hysteria which left one wanting to shake much of the public by the collar and shout 'it isn't real' in their faces.

She was of course in the news a lot leading up to the crash and a lot of people felt a degree of pity for her because of the position she was in and the hounding she was having to put up with from the press, but it doesn't explain the depth of the reaction. Perhaps sometimes these things simply take on an inexplicable life of their own.

[pErvinalia]

I think we as a society suffer from mass Stockholm Syndrome. We can't help but worship our captors.

[Brian Peacock]

Meh. It's easy to dismiss the experience of people who's feelings we don't share, but haven't we all felt a bit sad, and even a bit more than that, when we've heard of the death of a musician or author we've admired and/or had a relationship with through their work? Look at the recent deaths of artists like Bowie or Prince for example - do we really need people to tell us we're somehow not entitled to those feelings?

Diana was as big a celebrity as any Bowie or Prince, and while we might argue over the merits of her notoriety -- which imo was purely accidental and based very much on appearances over substance -- she was given the focus of a state funeral, and some people felt that they wanted to attend it, admittedly mostly vicariously via the media, but a great many made the effort to attend it on the streets of the capital and to pay their respects in person and be among people who shared their feelings.

I'm not inclined to dismiss that kind of thing as a false, unfounded, or empty expression. We don't dismiss the singing of football fans when their team wins the cup and they parade through the streets of the town on an open-topped bus (unless they beat our team!), nor do I subscribe to the conceit that conspicuous expressions of emotion, particularly sad ones, are somehow unmanly, uncalled for, or even un-British! It was what it was. Much of the nation was saddened, and then we move on (except for The Daily Express of course).

[mistermack]

There have always been odious cunts around Charles, ready to lie their heads off to make him look better.
Penny Junor is one of the worst. And, they make a lot of money doing it as well.

This sort of thing was coming out weekly when Diana was alive. On top of being a despicable shit, Charles had an army of people working with him, week in-week out working to discredit the innocent-but-dim 18 year old woman who they had duped into acting as a brood mare.
They were hoping she would falter under the pressure, and end up in a loony bin. That's how nasty the royal family is. They were absolutely dismayed when she got even more popular, to be probably at the time the most famous person in the world. They could hardly stick the knife in in that sort of glare of publicity.
But if she had been of no interest, she would have disappeared and spent the rest of her life drugged up.

[Sean Hayden]

Why is there still a royal family ffs? Confiscate their assets and be done with it already.

[Scott1328]

What? Princess Diana is dead? Does anyone else know? What is poor Charles to do?

[Rum]

Why is there still a royal family ffs? Confiscate their assets and be done with it already.

We are told they bring in more money to the country than we spend on them. Plus there are a large number of foolish people in this country who think our Queen is wonderful.