Robert Kirby: Loose cannon
FOR SALE OR HIRE: One slightly-used sentimental Candle in the Wind ballad for use as musical grief/tribute/time- filler. Only used twice before, but both previous deceased in whose honour it was written were very well-known and deeply loved blondes.
For a reasonable extra fee, the mutton- throated composer of this poignant musical shroud is prepared to re-write his heart- wrenching lyrics to suit any unexpected national calamities (including Egyptian ones) and will even agree to croak his expeditiously amended verses himself, provided the funeral service has extensive television coverage and frequent close-ups of his despair-stricken grimaces, and a bruised Japanese concert grand which hasnt been tuned for 20 years.
Reply to Eltons Lickety-split Anguish Purveyors By Appointment supplying date and location of funeral service, name/s of deceased you wish remembered in the new lyrics and any other details you would like included.
I think we should all be grateful to Elton John for delivering the final stunning mind-kick. Was it a genuine mistake or did they know hed be so faultlessly crass? Who else would actually propose that as a gesture of despair for his beloved dead princess he might hastily doctor the lyrics of a song he once wrote for someone elses death.
The Retread-Dirge. A whole new musical concept. Not only that, but the notion that grief is a moveable feast, something that can instantly be modified to glorify the next one in the coffin.
I believe the death ofDiana, Princess of Wales, will, under the patient scrutiny of future historians, be seen for its prime consequence. Kenneth Clarke once said that significant moments in history always seem to be preceded by a warning bell; rather like the bell they ring in the theatre foyer five minutes before the play begins.
By the example he chose to illustrate his point, Clarke intimated that within the sound of the bell could be perceived the nature of the play to come. He said the pointless loss of life on the Titanic was the warning bell for the Great War.
For whatever other reasons, I do hope that Dianas very public death will one day also be seen to have been the warning bell to the long overdue expiration of the worlds most ridiculous professional parasites: the British royal family.
The real misery has not been for the loss of a graceful and obligated person in Diana whats more, the first female royal in a long time who didnt look as if she was moulded out of decaying tapioca pudding but the fact that virtually every commentator has been speaking of a future for the royal family. That is what we should really be grieving about.
Among the fevered optimists was Dianas brother, the redoubtable Earl Charles Spencer. In the rather flamboyant speech he made at his sisters funeral, he spoke of the need to protect his nephews from the unwelcome attentions of a whorish press.
Do try to piss only on your own shoes, dear boy. Your whinging about the press monsters who squirm at the other end of your moral spectrum is mighty wry stuff coming from the owner of a personal cupboard concealing some rather dingy bones. Your lofty hyperbole about probity and rectitude is a bit like Dr Frankenstein denouncing transplant surgery.
In fact, its far too easy to spill contempt over the Diana thing. That it was vastly overplayed is without doubt. Its only contemporary significance little more than proof that we obviously still need our fairy tales.
Perhaps thats the real justification for the British royal family more especially their sticky peerage. Someone has to go on supplying Rupert Murdoch with things he can make grubby without too much wrist work.