Princess Diana
Has all this royal wedding talk made you think about Princess Diana? I know she was much-derided when she was alive – what with the nutty psychics, playing the paparazzi and preying on other women’s partners. But, come April 29, there’s going to be an empty seat at Westminster Abbey and, sappy as it sounds, I know that will make me sad.
Diana would have been 50 this year – a fabulous age to watch your first-born son marry the woman he loves. You can speculate all you like on how she might have stolen the show, but she was nothing if not an instinctive and affectionate mother.
What was fascinating about Diana was that both her life and death provoked a visceral response – not an intellectual one. Occasionally her actions made us think (her charity work for AIDS/landmines) but, more often, she made us feel. Struggling with the same problems as the rest of us – men, parenting, body image – she was like Julia Roberts’ character in Notting Hill: “I’m also just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
Continue reading "There will be an empty seat at the royal wedding" »
Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed died in a car crash in Paris today in 1997.
And it’s Tuesday so what’s on your mind?
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Wally King says:
I wanna know who the election bookies are going to pay as the winner of the 2010 election, I need the dough, I gotta a good thing in the cricket,and then I,m going to load up on the next election to be held within the next 6 months . I… Read more »
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Macca says:
I was thinking, that the party that has the most seats should get government, have their own ministers etc. However, both parties should be able to introduce legislation, and attempt to get it passed. If the opposition gets a policy past the independents and a Green, bad luck, you have… Read more »
Welcome to Friday @ The Punch
Today in 1997 Princess Diana called for an international ban on landmines after visiting Angola. Her comments were met with an angry response from many British ministers who described her as ‘ill-informed’ and a ‘loose cannon’.
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Eric says:
At last we agree on something, T. Read more »
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jed says:
can you get someone to write a piece against this kind of crap: http://www.news.com.au/money/interest-rates/fear-of-rising-rates-fuels-debt-aversion/story-e6frfmn0-1225819037272 surely these real estate shonks have had enough welfare to keep their industry ticking over. enough with fiddling in the market to prop it up, let’s just see where it is in a year without the… Read more »
I was bunkered down in 1997 finishing a book called Gotcha: Life in a Tabloid World when I was disturbed by a phone call. Something about a woman called Diana who’d died in a car crash the day before. I had no clue. The journo on the other end of the phone thought she’d accidentally called Mars.
Having lived through both the OJ trial and the Lewinsky/Clinton affair in New York I thought I knew what the eye of a celebrity death, sex or scandal storm looked like. I spent the next week fielding questions from the media about why the media couldn’t stop asking people questions about Diana.
The highbrow journos were all in deep shock about the public interest in a woman they saw as a dim blonde who liked disco dancing, enemas and psychics.
But they were equally transfixed by the level of public grief at her passing The only journalists who really understood what was going on were tabloid reporters – hacks in the minds of the ABC-types who’d previously seen themselves as gatekeepers of the news agenda.
Continue reading "Jackson’s death a study in tabloid human instincts" »
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Sonia says:
I think they are aussming that we wouldn’t have invaded Iraq if 9/11 didn’t happen… That is a valid assumption given how much the Bush administration tried (and failed) to link Saddam with al qaeda. Read more »
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T says:
‘highbrow journos’......is that an oxymoron ? Read more »
I wasn’t upset when Princess Diana died. I didn’t know her, never met her, thought she seemed like a bit of a dill.
Sad for her family but that’s life isn’t it. One day it’s all going to end. Hopefully not naked in a cupboard in Bangkok like David Carradine but you just don’t know.
Continue reading "Thanks Kev and ACA, but I’ll decide if I’m disgusted" »
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Maria F NSW says:
Point taken and noted. Perhaps we don’t know what the chaser boys have been through in their illustrious lives. Having said that, does anyone honestly believe that they would have gone through with this pathetic excuse for a joke if one of their kids was going through treatment for a… Read more »
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nick says:
THe Chaser definitely need to have a skit on this true life (unfortunately) episode. Hopefully they can skewer the fact that Uncle Kev is tuned into whatever ACA will or has said. Really no better than John Howard. I would really like to know from Greg exactly what harm this… Read more »
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