Parallels with now I think. A large portion of the country has lost their fucking minds and another large portion see this collective hysteria but don't feel they're able to publicly call it out.
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One of the most surreal times of my life. Every evening as I was going home from work Waterloo station was full of people carrying flowers to place outside Buckingham Palace. I still don’t understand why!
aug 31, 2025, 11:35 am • 1 0 • view
Spot on!
aug 31, 2025, 9:37 am • 7 0 • view
A lot of people have to pretend everything is normal - they refuse to contemplate the US is now a dictatorship, despite facts; they similarly regard Reform as a joke or ‘won’t be so bad’. I hate to say it but this is how total destruction starts … (there I go, catastrophising again)
aug 31, 2025, 11:47 am • 1 0 • view
The following week I was travelling with colleagues in a London cab to a client somewhere around Hyde Park Corner/Grosvenor Place. We drove through the Mall and Constitution Hill. The smell! Literally acres of ground covered in floral bouquets. Frankly, the hysteria gave me the creeps.
aug 31, 2025, 10:33 am • 8 0 • view
Widely believed that the Brexit referendum in 2016 was when the UK started to lose its collective mind, but I wonder if the mass public hysteria surrounding Diana's death in 1997 layed some of the foundations for this.
sep 2, 2025, 7:48 am • 1 0 • view
I remember working with a lady and she was distraught about Diana, when I asked her about the driver she replied with “He’s just a driver. Diana was a princess.”
aug 31, 2025, 9:57 am • 12 0 • view
I guess it’s like Elvis, Lennon or Marilyn dying. People see these people constantly and read about them and believe they know them when actually they don’t. I guess at least with an artist you at least can have some connection with the person through their works. But celebrities?
aug 31, 2025, 9:54 am • 3 0 • view
Notable this didn't seem to happen when QE2 died, even though it was clearly a far more significant event in terms of being "the end of an era" and the passing of the only person most had ever seen on the money or stamps
aug 31, 2025, 10:17 am • 4 0 • view
When QE died, we far more multi multichannel and had streaming services so it was far easier to avoid. The post-Diana middle of the road playlist across all channels for a week was seriously weird.
aug 31, 2025, 10:35 am • 5 0 • view
That’s presumably an age thing, though. The late Queen was very elderly and her death not a surprise. The other three (and Diana) were in their 30s or 40s, so their deaths were more unexpected and shocking/potentially traumatic.
aug 31, 2025, 10:28 am • 3 0 • view
Time to break the cycle, me thinks.
aug 31, 2025, 6:48 pm • 0 0 • view
When Brains F.C. get a tricky away tie against Anger United on a cow field of a pitch, reinforced shin pads gonna be required
aug 31, 2025, 9:53 am • 2 0 • view