10 years ago today.

[boxofslice]

Remember kids, don't drink and drive.

[wherearethespoons]

Your avatar sort of adds a bit of commentary. Nice.

[Neville Chamberlain]

"Is this a piece of your brain?"

[duckorange]

I still remember where I was that week: turning up at the hospital, all nicely shaven and not having a vasectomy because all the nursing staff had gone home in tears.

I just heard on News 24 that there will be a two minutes silence in Harrods today, led by Al-Fayed in front of his ever-tasteful Di'n'Dodi monument. This made me laugh for some reason.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

two minutes silence in Harrods today,

You could always go in at that point with some drum n bass on a ghetto blaster.  Or possibly God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols.

[hencole]

I remember the day well. I went to Bushy park with a mate to relax and have a few J's. We sat down in the grass and looked around us. The park was quite busy with people, which in itself wasn't that unusual. What was unusual however was that almost everyone we saw walked in straight line only. No one was using the paths, they were just shaking their heads or crying, and walked in random directions over ferns, through ditches, the lot. One of the surrealist things I've ever seen.

It really bought home how emotionally unstable vast numbers of the populace are, and how they should all be killed pre-birth.

[hencole]

You could always go in at that point with some drum n bass on a ghetto blaster.  Or possibly God Save The Queen by the Sex Pistols.

Or get pissed and drive a black Mercedes through the front windows of the shop.

[Blumf]

Or get pissed and drive a black Mercedes through the front windows of the shop.

A parade of white Fiat Unos down Brompton Road, with strobe lights.

[Beagle 2]

I was kipping around a mate's in his caravan where a few of us had been having a sort of party and I woke up about three in the morning absolutely freezing my tits off, so I thought 'fuck this I may as well walk home and get in my cosy bed'. I did so and turned on the TV where the BBC were reporting that Dodi had carked it and Diana had nothing more than, a broken wrist or ankle I think it was at first, there was really no indication she was dead although I guess they must have already known. So after staring at the same long shot of a car wreck somewhere in the distance for an hour or so with the same info looping over and over I went to sleep. Then my mum told me the next day when I woke up, in a sort of "that's a bit wierd isn't it, would you like a brew" matter-of-fact way. I agreed it was slightly wierd, and a shame and all that and thought about what to do with the rest of my day.

And then aaaaaall hell broke loose. It was fucking wierd wasn't it? I certainly wasn't prepared for anything like the response, and I really don't think I was being naive either. If you weren't sucked into all the hysteria you had to be fascinated and appalled looking in from the outside, either way you felt you were a part of some unstoppable force. Strangeness.

We'd been moaning about the fact she'd been on the front of the  paper every day that week for absolutely no reason, having a swim, wearing a pair of sunglasses, that sort of thing, and when my mate came round to call the first thing he said was "you'll never guess what the stupid bitch has done now".

[The Widow of Brid]

This completely fucked up my birthday piss-up a decade ago*. I wonder if it will do so again tonight.

(Why yes. The world does indeed revolve around me).


*_{A bizarre and depressing birthday all 'round that year. With a nun's funereal to attend during the day, and the pub full of teary eyed Royalists in the evening.}

[aaaaaaaaaargh!]

I remember my video recording of the Chart Show (I didn't have cable TV then and the Radio Times advertised this show as having Radiohead's Creep on it) being messed up by this whole thing as they cut to the news.

[The Mumbler]

I had moved house the day before. The main thing I remember about that Sunday was I went to work to do overtime, and was expecting to hear Cleo Laine choose her Desert Island Discs. When the programme went out as intended on the Friday, it turned out most of her eight records were by members of her own family.

On that Sunday, there was literally nothing on the radio to listen to. Which, given I had quite a dull job, made the day duller.

[Uncle TechTip]

Radio nuts will enjoy this news bulletin from 10 years ago... 'not for public broadcast'

http://www.sendspace.com/file/diszhp (876K realaudio)

[_Hypnotoad_]

A parade of white Fiat Unos down Brompton Road, with strobe lights.

Playing complicated Euro Trance

Its what she would've wanted

You heartless cunts, why can't you be *touched, like this kid with her dolly?



*Not touched like THAT

[_Hypnotoad_]

You heartless cunts, why can't you be *touched, like this kid with her dolly?



*Not touched like THAT

[Chutney]

[Blumf]

Mohamed Al Fayed to offer free cocaine to all taxi drivers and chauffeurs in the Greater London area

[spraticus]

I remember being woken up by these two old ladies in the street outside my bedroom window sounding exactly like Graham Champman and Terry Jones saying "have you heard the news... Lady Di's been blown up by a landmine" whereupon I got up and switched on my tv set, slightly disappointed to find out it was only a car crash

[lipsink]

I just could not and still don't understand members of the public crying at Diana's death. I have never cried at a celebrity dying. And when I was 13 in 1994 Nirvana and Kurt Cobain was my LIFE. When I heard he had died I was just really pissed off and shocked. But crying? No, I'm sorry. I would only do that for someone I knew. When people were crying over Diana was it because they felt like they knew her or because it was such a tragic story? I remember feeling like a heartless bastard in 1997 because I just didn't give a fucking toss about the lady.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

I remember feeling like a heartless bastard in 1997 because I just didn't give a fucking toss about the lady.

Me too, though I reckoned that was what she wanted.

[SetToStun]

On the Monday following the Most Horrific Accident In The World (tm) I was approached at work by one of the secretaries who was taking up a collection "for Diana", whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean or achieve. I said that I couldn't donate at that point as I didn't happen to have a roll of 35mm film on me and, let's face it, that was all the vainglorious old tart ever cared about. This opinion was not universally well-received, however correct it was.

But yes, it is quite staggering how much public grief poured out about an adulterous airhead. It seems that some people are never happy unless they're grieving, as paradoxical as that is.

As for the latest bout, I shall be putting on my shunning shoes and tap-dancing my way down Ignore It All Alley. And firebombing the offices of the Daily Express, if I can get off my fat, lazy arse for long enough.

[boxofslice]

Something that stuck with me that week was some woman being interviewed on TV outside Buckingham Palace and the interview went like this :

Reporter - Did you ever meet Diana?
Woman - No
Reporter - How are you feeling right now?
Woman - Well, I didn't cry when my father died but i'm crying now.
Reporter - Do you think anyone is to blame for this?
Woman - Well its the newspapers and that paperatso* isn't it. They hounded that poor woman to her death.

It was important to note that in that womans bag there must have been about five different newspapers.

*her words

[Viero_Berlotti]

One of the most surreal moments in my life was at a floral tribute to Diana in the centre of Manchester. It was a Sunday and I was walking through town, still a bit pilled up from the night before.

I think it had been about a week since her death. I got to Albert Square and noticed there was a massive sea of floral tributes around one of the statues in the centre of the square. Near the bouquets around a dozen people were stood in silent meditation. I thought to myself "I'll go over and have a quick sneer at some of the sentimental messages people had left with the flowers". So over I went, and I had been stood there for about 20 seconds when I heard a weird hissing noise to my left break the deathly silence. I turned around, and stood right next to me was some sickly looking pale teenager with a yellow gas canister in his hand looking at the flowers whilst sniffing gas!! Still being a bit woozy from the pills it freaked me out, but the weird thing was nobody else stood there had even noticed this gas sniffing kid. It's suffice to say I made a quick exit.

[DistantAngel]

I never understood the crying millions either ... I can only assume that they have such hollow, empty existences, that they have to co-opt the feelings of others (be they grief or happiness, but particularly grief) in order to feel anything at all.  People reacted so badly if you told them that you were indifferent to the news, like you'd just pissed on their grandmothers, but I've always been 100% confidence that that's exactly how we should be feeling.  You didn't know her, you never met her, and had no connection to her other than that she lived in the same country as you, and you paid her rent - if you want to feel bad, feel bad for the fact that two kids would be growing up without a mother, that's all.

As for the woman who cried over Diana but not her own father - beneath contempt (I'm assuming he was a normal, everyday nice dad, and not an abusive bastard, obviously).

[chocky909]

Shit, I need to go out and buy a life size inflatable model of ET. I'd better hurry, there'll be a run on those.

It's Dido that should be worried.

Given the unfortunate sequence of events involving the Dodo, Di, Dodi and Dando

[Anon]

Yeah, I remember my reaction to her death quite clearly - intense annoyance that this bloody stupid royal person had to go and fuck-up Sunday morning kids tv by selfishly dying in the middle of the night.

The git.

[wherearethespoons]

O sweet Diana,
You touched all our hearts when it mattered,
And we all shed a tear at the manner,
In which you were tragically splattered.

From Mark Steel on Wednesday - http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/mark_steel/article2903522.ece

[Viero_Berlotti]

Don't know if anybody is listening to Martin Coogan on 96.2 The Revolution. He's doing a Diana themed request show, already had requests in for Janis Joplin "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me A Mercedes Benz" and The Cure "Killing an Arab".

[Chutney]

Something that stuck with me that week was some woman being interviewed on TV outside Buckingham Palace and the interview went like this :

Reporter - Did you ever meet Diana?
Woman - No
Reporter - How are you feeling right now?
Woman - Well, I didn't cry when my father died but i'm crying now.
Reporter - Do you think anyone is to blame for this?
Woman - Well its the newspapers and that paperatso* isn't it. They hounded that poor woman to her death.

It was important to note that in that womans bag there must have been about five different newspapers.

*her words

Pedant time - paperazzo is the singular of papperazzi, so assuming that spelling is your own interpretation, then she's dead right.

Although in all other respects she's an idiot.

[Viero_Berlotti]

Pedant time - paperazzo is the singular of papperazzi, so assuming that spelling is your own interpretation, then she's dead right.

Pedant time - I think you'll find it's paparazzi with one p and no e not papperazzi.

EDIT: And the singular is paparazzo not paperazzo, again no e.