diana

did channel 4 show their programme on the dying moments of diana? i can’t imagine that they did because the world is still turning. to hear some of the guff that had been spoken on the radio and printed in the papers it appeared that displaying pictures was tantamount to beginning the end as foretold in the book of revelations.

oh ok i know they showed it. how? well radio 5 covered it (along with talking about such shows as the apprentice and big brother) this morning. apparently there have been complaints made about the show – but at the time it was unsure how many were relevant because they don’t count those made before the show has been shown.
even so disaster didn’t strike, there were no plagues, maddie is still lost, no one was turned into pillars of salt. in fact life just went on.

all the fuss and bother about the show and it looks like it was a bit of a damp squib, no worries though i am sure that the newspapers will find a new way to get a diana mug shot in to their regular editions – but of course their dealing with the matter will be tasteful (a little like the story about who took camilla’s virginity) and not harming to the princes (william who was so worried he was apparently buying asda out of all their pimms on the day of the showing…)
of course none of this has anything to do with the fact the media has a vested interest in keeping the diana industry still going – it sells papers. the moral outrage that some of the papers had over this story was such that it gave channel 4 heaps of free publicity while allowing the media to rake over the various coals of the story. they looked liked they cared about moral standards while all the time selling themselves on the back of the story.
when it comes to hypocrisy there are times when it is very hard to beat fleet street.

lets be honest here – for all intents and purposes the fact she was being chased down by photographers who just wanted that one shot to earn them the big bucks had nothing to do with the fact that editors want them in their latest issues.

even better is the fact that we will get another chance to go through all this again when al fayed tries to get the queen to the witness stand.

diana, like kurt cobain, should be laid to rest and any paper or tv station making a show about them should be forced to donate their profits to charitable organisations.

it won’t happen because the diana industry is too lucrative and for all the wringing of hands about how the pictures on show were a step too far, there are still far too many people who are interested in the trials and tribulations of a troubled woman. even worse it isn’t because we want to see her life as a morality play, it just that celebrity culture demands we know everything.