Diana

FINALLY, having leafed through endless Diana tomes. Morton (interesting, but skewed) Burrel (insufferable hagiography) Colin Campbell (interesting) Brown (anti) I finally found one that appears to give a rounded account. Clayton & Craig, Diana: Story of a Princess. It's a very sad story. I think a lot of us felt sad with her. Not for, but with.

When she died, the country went nuts. That week, Britain ran out of cut flowers and newsprint. The shops were almost empty ~ everywhere. Nobody wanted to buy anything. Newspapers reported on nothing else. Television played endless tributes, discussion etc etc.

Here from pp315-6, describing the last working trip Diana made, to Angola.



We went into one particular ward with children. And there was a little girl who was clearly in a terrible condition. She'd gone to fetch water and had stepped on a mine and basically had her entire insides blown out, and everything was sort of hanging out. It was horrific. And the hospital said that she wouldn't survive ~ they were just making her as comfortable as possible. You could see that she probably wouldn't last, maybe even that day.

After Diana moved on, I stayed and just asked the girl a few more questions, because I thought I would write about her. And she said to me, "Who was that?" And it was quite hard trying to explain Princess Diana to somebody who didn't know. And I said, "She's a princess from England, from far away." And she said to me, "Is she an angel?" And I found that really moving. This little girl probably died a few hours after that ~ I know she died ~ and it somehow seemed nice that that was the last thing that she saw, this beautiful lady that she thought was an angel.

DIANA: THE SECRET TAPES
The tapes in question were the audio tapes on which Andrew Morton based Diana: Her True Story. The tapes in these extracts are videos of Diana practising a speech on addiction. It doesn't start till 5 mins into the part 8; she is being coached by the actor Peter Settelen. William and Harry are in the background, (part 9) Diana keeps reprimanding them for laughing and not sitting still.

Sunday Slumber

IT'S AROUND THREE THIRTY Sunday afternoon. I am listening to Roald Dahl's The Witches on the radio via the wonders of internet technology. In a minute I am due to go up Mother Hubbs's house. I still look scruffy because my coat's a bit dirty but all my clothes are fresh and clean thanks to my efforts with a bucket, hot water and washing up liquid to get them clean and a cooker top, wok (as giant paper weight thing) and kitchen cupboard as drying board. One certain item made the water run nearly black, but I got it sunlight-fresh again...

Typical me describing Princess Diana's old home yesterday in all it's odd taste I forgot to say how I personally thought the Palace (who aparently have a giant central furniture and rugs store) had deliberately given Diana mismatched stuff. I honestly can't see how she'd have chosen such odd and clashing styles herself.

By the way, on clicking the Wedgwood link I found my favourite design for plates/cups/tureens etc. It is called Florentine Turquoise. Plates are "only" £50/$100 each, so ... hmmm, yeah... a full "service" might set "one" back £2000...

The poem was a joke! It comes from Shakespeare's Passionate Pilgrim... I just wanted to see if anyone recognized it!!

I slept for hours and hours last night and had so many odd dreams.... you will be relieved I am sure to hear that I can barely remember one of them, so no dream-posting today!

Righto I had better go it is getting late and I really don't feel well. I don't know why...

New Year's Eve tomorrow. Wahey!!

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Video:
Chinese TV Commercial: Automatic Dr

Cheese and Onion Rolls

LOVELY CHEESE AND ONION ROLLS! The cheese and onion being baked upon t' top. These I am devouring with intellectual parsley French cheese and garlic "le roulé". It's v nice but the robos prefer it without the garlicky cream cheese. Neither they nor Pingpong the Chinese hammy can abide garlick. They don't like ginger biscuits either.

My tiny Tubbies TM are so cute I nearly cried. Intruding upon their enclosed tartanness, I witnessed their wheel a-spinning wildly. On closer look I saw all three tubbies a-rambling at once. One hangs on and a flash of white belly flares around and round and round until the poor robo manages to unhook herself...

Bad news from Yorkshire: a 13 month old baby boy named Archie Lee was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog in Wakefield yesterday. The infant was being looked after by his 16 year-old aunt, who went upstairs just for one minute. Meanwhile a seven year-old girl, also in the house, took the babe outside to pet said doggie. The 14-stone rottweiler sprang and grabbed the child in its powerful jaws and literally tore him apart. The 16 year-old auntie ran down and bravelly tried to grab the child back but to no avail. Realizing she had failed she called the emergency services. Armed police arrived within six minutes and shot the dog dead. Sadly the little boy died in hospital later that night.

In the library today I found a book called The Way We Were by Paul Burrel, Princess Diana's flunky butler (her "rock"). Among the blah-blah-blahs in the centre pages are pictures of the late Diana's home at Kensington Palace. Man! I was shocked! This woman, an international "icon" of style... had absolutely no style at all when it came to personal interior decor. Honestly it looks like Jack and Vera Duckworth's lottery winning mansion ... Take a room-by-room tour:~

Dressing Room: Walls crabmeat pink, curtains pea green with spaghetti white strips. Pea green carpet with crabmeat splotches.

Sitting Room: Cheap white rug with pink-and-blue pastel squares. Nasty blue-red-and-butter wallpaper colours tightly meshed together giving overall appearance of a nasty 1970s kipper tie. Middleclass dollshouse windows. Champagne chaise. Cobalt blue curtains. Magnolia shelves along one wall against Barbara Cartland shocking pink paintwork.

Dining Room Deep red walls. White crisscross Hamptons Holiday Home style rug. Round table with Daz-white plain cloth. Totally mismatched bamboo garden dining chairs.

Drawing Room Yellow walls. Same middle class windows as "sitting" room now with red ruffy curtains atop and around. Pea green satin sofas with red and yellow cushions. Other chairs - crabmeat pink and champagne. Arabesque rug in white with pink-blue-green flowers-&-stems stylee swirls. Totally mismatched dark mahogany tables and drawers plonked here and there atop it. And most clashing of all a floor to ceiling silk mediaeval style pastoral tapestry.

Staircase: Yellow walls. White detailing "Wedgwood" style. Nasty post-Victorian splashy paintings spaced irregularly up the stairs...

Nasty business!

How does everyone like my "rude" poem? 1st one I have copied up for ages. Hasn't the verse matured? And the style improved? Since the last poesies I posted?

Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,
and scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,
when Cytherea, all in love forlorn,
a longing tarriance for Adonis made
under an osier growing by a brook,
a brook where Adon used to cool his spleen.
Hot was the day; she hotter that did look
for his approach that often there had been.
Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,
and stood stark naked on the brook's green brim.
The sun looked on the world with glorious eye,
yet not so wistly as this queen on him.
He, spying her, bounced in whereas he stood;
"O Jove!" quoth she. "Why was I not a flood?"


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(Saturday)
Video:
HM the Queen's first televised Message to the Nation 1957

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See some wonderfully atmospheric seaside photos from the North Yorks town of Whitby ...