Public displays of grief for someone you don't know

hoof_it_up_to_benty

I realise I'm in a minority nowadays but this trend that started with the death of Lady Di really does my head in. It's been a great boost for florists but it does my nut in.

Watching the Diana doc with Tony Blair talking about the 'people's princess' is like a spoof.

NapaAddick

The last public people I ever cried over ...

Princess Diana
Steve Jobs

alan dugdale

NapaAddick said:

The last public people I ever cried over ...

Princess Diana
Steve Jobs

George Cole. Each time.

Garrymanilow

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

I realise I'm in a minority nowadays but this trend that started with the death of Lady Di really does my head in. It's been a great boost for florists but it does my nut in.

Watching the Diana doc with Tony Blair talking about the 'people's princess' is like a spoof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1H913UqQ6w

hoof_it_up_to_benty

Garrymanilow said:

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

I realise I'm in a minority nowadays but this trend that started with the death of Lady Di really does my head in. It's been a great boost for florists but it does my nut in.

Watching the Diana doc with Tony Blair talking about the 'people's princess' is like a spoof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1H913UqQ6w

Think he sums it up pretty well. The mass hysteria in Britain was pretty shocking.

Garrymanilow

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

Garrymanilow said:

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

I realise I'm in a minority nowadays but this trend that started with the death of Lady Di really does my head in. It's been a great boost for florists but it does my nut in.

Watching the Diana doc with Tony Blair talking about the 'people's princess' is like a spoof.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1H913UqQ6w

Think he sums it up pretty well. The mass hysteria in Britain was pretty shocking.

And it's still going. Utterly bizarre. I'm amazed people can get out of bed in the morning with all the grief they must have to process every time a stranger reaches their end

blackpool72

alan dugdale said:

NapaAddick said:

The last public people I ever cried over ...

Princess Diana
Steve Jobs

George Cole. Each time.

No .when I can't believe it.
This cannot be true

hoof_it_up_to_benty

blackpool72 said:

alan dugdale said:

NapaAddick said:

The last public people I ever cried over ...

Princess Diana
Steve Jobs

George Cole. Each time.

No .when I can't believe it.
This cannot be true

Has he died again?

RodneyCharltonTrotta

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

I realise I'm in a minority nowadays but this trend that started with the death of Lady Di really does my head in. It's been a great boost for florists but it does my nut in.

Watching the Diana doc with Tony Blair talking about the 'people's princess' is like a spoof.

The Dianafication of a nation. Load of mawkish bollocks.

i_b_b_o_r_g

I think it's got more to do with social media than Di

seth plum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSWN6Qj98Iw

See that Donald? Would you like the same?

SporadicAddick

It seems unusual for any game to not start with a minutes silence (or applause, which is even more annoying) nowadays. players may just as well have a black armband sewn permanently onto their kits to save time. It preceded Diana in football - a minutes silence for the Chelsea chairman Matthew Harding at all games played that weekend. A very sad death and a tragedy for his family and possibly Chelsea fans, but for everyone else?

ElfsborgAddick

A death may touch on a nerve to people, but I have never been able to understand people crying over a death of somebody they have never met.

limeygent

Do we have to meet somebody for them to touch our lives in some important way, or for us to grieve their passing? Maybe as we get older our outlook changes? I've certainly shed a tear or two for people I've never met.

McBobbin

I honestly don't recall crying when someone I've never met died (context: I once cried when a nice old lady got some very good news on Antiques Roadshow, and don't get me started on the film Babe). Sometimes I go "that's a shame" or that's a surprise (like that guy from Soundgarden Chris Cornell) but never tears

limeygent

Clearly remember my parents crying when Churchill died, so did most of the nation.

Big William

I never met Karel Fraye but he reduced me to tears many times :-)

addick1965

I seem to recall going on a beano (pre planned) on the day of Lady Di's funeral.

McBobbin

limeygent said:

Clearly remember my parents crying when Churchill died, so did most of the nation.

Were they alive during WW2? I can definitely understand that

sillav nitram

I didn't cry but I was moved by Diana's death, whether I got swept along with the public grief,maybe, but I don't think so. I even went and laid some flowers in Ken Gardens, admittedly it's on my doorstep, so didn't go out of my way.

I'm not a royalist far from it but she did seem the exception from the vile others and while I'll except, she probably was equally manipulated to suit a particular image, I still felt she had a genuine feel to her, if one can ever say that about a royal.

East_Stand_Loopy

http://www.rentamourner.co.uk/

Not a job for any of you, then?

hoof_it_up_to_benty

sillav nitram said:

I didn't cry but I was moved by Diana's death, whether I got swept along with the public grief,maybe, but I don't think so. I even went and laid some flowers in Ken Gardens, admittedly it's on my doorstep, so didn't go out of my way.

I'm not a royalist far from it but she did seem the exception from the vile others and while I'll except, she probably was equally manipulated to suit a particular image, I still felt she had a genuine feel to her, if one can ever say that about a royal.

Public figures who do the odd bit of charity work are hardly worthy of praise compared to the poor bastards working as care workers etc on minimum wage with a zero hours contract.

I thought Diana was as manipulative as the rest of the royasl and she seemed to pave the way for the celebrity culture that we're now submerged in.

I genuinely didn't recognise my own country with the hysterical reaction to her death - I found it embarrassing to behold. I didn't realise that this was just the start of it.

Social media seems to be making hysterical overreaction the norm and I find it a little worrying.

wmcf123

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

I realise I'm in a minority nowadays but this trend that started with the death of Lady Di really does my head in. It's been a great boost for florists but it does my nut in.

Watching the Diana doc with Tony Blair talking about the 'people's princess' is like a spoof.

Spare a thought for the woman that originally played Peggy in Eastenders

Bangkokaddick

Lots of grief here when the King died last October.

No doubt much more to come when the funeral eventually takes place.

Robbo on the wing

SporadicAddick said:

It seems unusual for any game to not start with a minutes silence (or applause, which is even more annoying) nowadays. players may just as well have a black armband sewn permanently onto their kits to save time.

Liverpool FC

PopIcon

Really never understood why Lady Diana was referred to as the 'people's princess'.
She came from a family of aristocrats with over 500 years of noted history.

bobmunro

limeygent said:

Do we have to meet somebody for them to touch our lives in some important way, or for us to grieve their passing? Maybe as we get older our outlook changes? I've certainly shed a tear or two for people I've never met.

Totally agree.

Two that spring to mind for me where I shed genuine tears of grief - John Lennon and Muhammad Ali.

kings hill addick

I can find my eyes leaking when I, unintentionally, end up watching a tv program about a child, or children, suffering or dying. Weirdly though I find they leak much more when there is an unepexted turn for the better and the child makes some kind of recovery.

I don't, however, understand, in any way, the public emotions at the death of 'celebrities'.

Must admit to a lump in my throat when we have our minutes applause at The Valley each year with the names of fans that have passed away on the big screen. I would never have met any of them but I read each and every name and, for reasons I can't explain, have to concentrate not to shed a tear - no wailing out loud, obviously, but still... That is one of the most unpleasant, and the most wonderful minutes of the year.

That video of the ET at Kensinging Palace made me cry as well - with laughter. :-)

letthegoodtimesroll

.

SporadicAddick said:

It seems unusual for any game to not start with a minutes silence (or applause, which is even more annoying) nowadays. players may just as well have a black armband sewn permanently onto their kits to save time. It preceded Diana in football - a minutes silence for the Chelsea chairman Matthew Harding at all games played that weekend. A very sad death and a tragedy for his family and possibly Chelsea fans, but for everyone else?

This minutes silence thing that's crept in on a regular basis now at our games for people with no connection to the club used to piss me off big time but now, as long as I know it's going to happen, I recognise it as an opportunity to spend a little longer savouring a pint or have a piss. Perhaps a rendition of 'who the fcking ell was he?' from fans at clubs where there was no connection might discourage the club and the EFL from imposing these things on its customers.

JiMMy 85

bobmunro said:

limeygent said:

Do we have to meet somebody for them to touch our lives in some important way, or for us to grieve their passing? Maybe as we get older our outlook changes? I've certainly shed a tear or two for people I've never met.

Totally agree.

Two that spring to mind for me where I shed genuine tears of grief - John Lennon and Muhammad Ali.

A lot of people cried at Lennon but that's a great example - he really wasn't a very nice person, especially behind close doors.

newyorkaddick

The reaction to Diana was terrifying (and of course it was pre social media) - I always thought the cynical Brits could never get whipped into a collective frenzy.

I recall thinking the minutes silence after the Soham murders to be especially odd too - I wonder who at the FA decides which murders of children (all equally tragic) warrant such treatment?