The Death of Diana, Love Island

... For thousands of people, (Princess) Diana was an icon. More than that, her death was the point at which it became clear that British society had fundamentally changed. To some of us, it was as if we suddenly found ourselves inhabiting a different country. Thousands of people were behaving as if they personally had been bereaved. Wan and tearful Tube passengers clutched Cellophane-wrapped bouquets on their way to add to the drifts of flowers and cards piling up at the gates of Kensington Palace.

Ophelia
John Everett Millais (1829-1896)
Photo Credit: Tate Britain [CC BY-NC-ND]

Yet all those thousands were mourning someone they had never met... By declaring themselves to be grieving, these "mourners" devalued the real grief felt over the loss of those who are truly close to us...

If people were not now wearing on their sleeves emotions such as grief or love, they risked being attacked as unfeeling. Yet no one knew what Prince Charles or the Queen actually felt, any more than they knew Diana.

What rapidly became clear was that the British characteristic of emotional self-control, which previously had been deeply valued for guarding against hysteria and uncontrollable feeling, was now being denounced for precisely the same reason. The stiff upper lip was regarded as proof positive of an emotional wasteland. The notion that self-control might actually enable an individual to cope better with loss, as well as showing consideration to others was dismissed out of hand...

Many put Diana on a pedestal. Now she really is to stand on a plinth, the public are being urged not to turn her statue into another Cellophane - festooned shrine to to victimhood. What will be unveiled this week is not just a memorial to a tragically lost mother and troubled soul, but to an emblem of our topsy-turvy, self-absorbed and emotionally incontinent era.

(Melanie Phillips, The Times, 2021) 

For thousands of people, (Princess) Diana was an icon. Undoubtedly true. 

More than that, her death was the point at which it became clear that British society had fundamentally changed. I think not. Because a few thousand people express their sadness at the death of a princess by laying some flowers does not add up to a fundamental societal change.

The stiff upper lip was regarded as proof positive of an emotional wasteland. The notion that self-control might actually enable an individual to cope better with loss, as well as showing consideration to others was dismissed out of hand... Who was doing the dismissing? The Media?

*Sir, How refreshing to have a more accurate and balanced view of Princess Diana. Melanie Phillips has put her finger on the extraordinary mass hysteria that surrounded Diana's death. I had the privilege of meeting her several times, so don't count among the masses who knew her only from the newspapers and TV. Everything Phillips says fits with my experience of Princess Diana and it would be appropriate if the unveiling of her statue were accorded a respectful but less worshipful reception.

(Terry Summers, Woodstock, Oxon, The Times, 2021)

*Sir, What a wonderfully brave article by Melanie Phillips. The outpouring of apparent love and grief at one remove distorts the reality of a person or events. Diana's tragedy has become our tragedy, not because we are not sorry for the loss of a mother and a great beauty but because we have lost something in ourselves: the sense of what is real and how to react to events with proper measure. That is a genuine sadness.

(Elizabeth Edmunds, Great Staughton, Cambs, The Times, 2021)

Love Island

Love Island is back Woohoo, wayhay. But what's this? Do I sense that some of you would rather flambè your own feet than watch a televised cattle market of the vapid and and vacuous wearing cheese wire-thonged bikinis? That you are indifferent to a selective breeding programme for the beautiful and the dim? Oh, you and me both.

For the past few years, watching pouty creatures with bodies so skinny it seems impossible that they can accommodate two kidneys and a liver saying things like: "What's an earlobe?", you can almost feel your brain shrinking. Watching six-packed men say they are deep thinkers then checking their hair 473 times a day makes one wonder at the human race...

(Carol Midgely, The Times, 2021)

The Lady of Shalott, 

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

Photo Credit: Tate [CC BY-NC-ND]

What a good article by Sean O’Grady on Love Island (I, 30 May). For Love Island read “sex island”, inhabited by a group of unnatural-looking humans whose bodies have been skewed by Botox, lip injections and unnatural looking whitened (and capped teeth). The men look awful too, with their overblown muscles and fake tans. Perhaps if these contestants allowed us to see them in their natural state they would look more attractive, as many obviously are underneath all the fakery.

Like the Jeremy Kyle Show this is not a “reality” programme at all – far from it. The Jeremy Kyle Show was cruel to the less fortunate than others and Love Island follows suit. I don’t watch them, but know their content and have always thought what a bad influence they were on young people.

(M Hepworth, Pocklington, York, in The i, 2019)