Yesterday afternoon, I had the severe misfortune to catch some of the Concert For Diana on the BBC. It was basically full of fawning, servile 'celebrities' wanting a bit of publicity as they knew that thousands would be in attendance and millions watching on TV. They talked in what they hoped would be perceived as humble rapture about the woman who was killed by her own love-hate relationship with the press. Everyone seems to have forgotten that dead people did sometimes have failings when they were alive; Diana was a considerably capable manipulator of words and emotions, controlling her own destiny with crocodile tears in front of Martin Bashir, and always being certain to demonise the Royal Family as every hero needs a good villain. The hysteria of the people at that concert (who obviously have had nothing better to do with their whole lives for the last ten years) was only matched by the hysteria on the day of her funeral, when the entire country shut down for a day of self-glorified mourning. I went for a walk that day; the only good thing about it was that there was so little traffic on the roads that the country felt much more peaceful; I didn't feel depressed at all. These people who obsess about this decidedly average woman never seem to want to recognise the intelligent work that Prince Charles has performed for many charities, because they still hold a grudge that he had an affair in a marriage that he never wanted to be involved with in the first place! These people, are of course, sheep. They do not want to think outside what they have seen on the sensationalist television channels or read in the tabloid newspapers. That is why they love Diana so much: because the people's princess did so love being the shepherd.
