Grumble wrote: ↑Mon Feb 08, 2021 1:26 pm
My sister told me about Diana dying. I said, “oh right” and went off to work (on the deli counter in a supermarket). I was astonished by the amount of attention it was getting when I got to work. And for the next weeks. Our next door neighbours went to London to see the floral tributes, I bet they added to them as well.
We then got to go through the whole cringe-inducing charade with the Queen Mother a few years later.
I remain indifferent to Diana, both before her death and after, but I can still recognise the tragic aspects of her demise; died young in an accident, young family, work for charidee, badly treated by the press and the rest of the Royals, the whole melodramatic soap opera of it all.
With the Queen Mother you didn't even have that; she was what 102(?), died of old age after a comfortable life of indolence; an entire life doing nothing of any real significance*, meh doesn't come close to the level of ennui she instilled. Yet there we were, supposedly united as a nation, hysterically weeping in the streets for the amusement of others.
My flatmate-at-the-time's mother and gran went to the lying-in-state and after 4 hours pointlessly queuing in the rain hadn't got anywhere near her before they gave up and returned home, apparently proud of themselves for having properly "demonstrated their respect". How very English.
*sorry I meant single-handedly fighting off the Nazi menace.
This place is not a place of honor, no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here, nothing valued is here.
What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.
This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.