Apparently Princess Diana is dead again. She first died in 1997 and to this day is continuing to die on an almost weekly basis. Tonight she died in a tunnel in Paris and ITN News at Ten are on the story with Tom Bradbury who seems very upset about the whole thing. More upset, you could argue, than a reporter should be. I mean when she originally died, he had every right to shed a few tears even as a supposedly hardened journalist. But this must be the seven thousandth time she’s died and he really should be getting used to it by now. It’s always in the same place in the same city and it’s always everybody’s fault. Mine because I’ve watched television and read newspapers, yours because you were breathing on the same planet as the people’s princess. We've all got her blood on our hands.Reporter Bradbury talks to camera in a solemn Captain Kirk manner. “The last thing she would have seen, would have been the flashes of the many cameras.” He looks for all the world like he’s trying to say something deeper and more profound than his clumsy words allow him. Only his mum understands. Then he talks as every member of the press does without irony, about how the excessive press-attention upsets “the princes”.
I remember when she died for the first time, everyone was told to be upset because it was Britain’s turn for a big out-pouring of emotion. Tony Blair looked serious and said something serious about the whole thing as did William Hague because he was looking serious as well. Radio 1 stopped playing rock and pop, replacing it with classical music. But that could only relieve the pain so much.
Princess Diana’s dead - all the time dead. Never to be alive again; like all those who fell before and Saturday morning kid’s television. Dribbling over her bloody dead body doesn't seem to make her breath again. The ghosts in the Paris tunnel are bored. They're hoping we may have finally realised.
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