DIANA.

What can you say?

The Imperial Fluffball is gone. No longer are the streets of London menaced by the high-heeled, credit-card-wielding monster that threatened to devour it whole. The crown is safe. Elizabeth can relax. The dogs can quit barking.

William can get back to his soccer game. Harry can go back to chasing girls. The Labrador can go snooze. And, perhaps most importantly of all, Charles can get back to snogging Camilla and working on his organic garden.

So it's a few photographers on the dole. They'll live.

What does this mean for the Empire? And I persist in calling it an empire because that's what it feels like to me. Her Blondeness has vanished in a puffof smoke, a trail of flowers and a flurry of last few pictures. Wonder who got the last one. What a record. Bye bye, Fluffball. Kensington High Street shall never see your like again.

What now? When a nation, even a world, loses its very symbol, what does it do? Crane its neck at a 15-year-old boy to see if he can take the load? Harry, maybe? Nah, he was crying too bad. Camilla? No. Too risky. I will not consider the dog....this is getting ridiculous.

Who falls in line now as Apprentice Fluffball? Elizabeth? Not cute enough. Phillip? You have got to be kidding. Sophie? Please. No.

We ain't calling Fergie back. We fired her.

And face it. Those little girls are just too short to project well. Besides, that one looks like she wants a normal life. Sigh.

What in the hell do we do? We so had our hearts set on seeing Diana take over the job....she'd have looked good in that crown, wouldn't she have? Maybe snip the robes here and here. Perfect.

No. We will not consider William. Absolutely not. Just too much pressure. He's so young. And how is he supposed to have a normal life?

Waah. Can't we have Diana back for just one second?

Toldja it was gonna be bitchy. This is my page. Disclaimer is back there. Ta ta.

So who was Diana, really? And how did she do this? How did she manage to bring an entire nation -- nay even, half an entire world -- to its knees during the first week of September? Why was I hit with a jolt I will never forget at 2:30 AM August 31 when I first saw the news? How could this woman affect us all this way?

In short, what the hell is going on here? Perhaps that's the best tribute of all. Look at her for what she was, not what she was not. That will give us some answers.

I personally saw Diana as a bitch who would do about anything for some good publicity and somehow managed to carry it off with grace and dignity. Contradiction, I know. But you have to start somewhere. Flaunting her butt like that in front of cameras....taking over the Queen's place....inexcusable. But she did it so that an entire nation let her get away with it, at least in public. Wow. What talent. I've heard all the stories about yeah, yeah, she was born with royal blood and perhaps even more than the reigning Windsor family, but let's leave them with the Crown and examine how a usurper like this did it.

She projected the image of truly caring for her sons. Now whether any woman who really loved her child would inform him (after the news had been leaking for a week in that not-so-secure Eton environment) that she was going on what reasonably amounted to worldwide television (and consider the contents of that interview....) maybe, what, 24-48 hours before the interview was scheduled to air, plans made and everything, and did no more than flag him down after chapel (so we are told), drag him behind a not-high-enough hedge and tell him in full photographer view? I'd've never forgiven her for that routine. The boy looked like he had been sucker-punched. A young man like that to whom she was so used to turning for advice...a young man who would someday inherit the very monarchy she was messing with....I believe my point is made. I was plumping for toting her off to Tower Green the morning after the thing aired. But then that's just me.

But she did it. Everybody in the world was convinced she loved those boys. It was a very public show and perhaps, given the nature of monarchy, that's what we could expect. But it was there. It convinced people. It is none of our business what it was really like. All I know is that I saw small things here and there, like the above, that convinced me it might be at least a little self-conscious on her part, this "good mother" bit. But the public was convinced. Do not mess with a good mother. That is messing with England. Hmmm...that last line just came rolling out. Perhaps it is part of the story . Do not mess with a good mother. That is messing with England? And if I am any good at all at spotting the discrepancies, how come so few other people agreed with me? I constantly question myself. This is a very public website. Do I have the right to say the things I say? I'm going to assume so for now, but I don't assume that lightly. So you have to consider...how come I've been one of the few people screaming about that woman? How come, even now, she is memorialized as a good mother?

Links. Gotta have them. She was a human link herself. So I'm going to start out with flower links. This lady deserves them. And then I'm going to proceed to shopping links. And then to movies. I may get her official charities up again, but I've always figured that one of her biggest charities was supporting the shopping industry.

Here we go: A set of flower shots that stunned me the night I first saw them. The lady asked me not to link to them becuase she was going to take them down, but they're still up. She can scream if she wants. These are gorgeous. If you want roses for Diana, I have seen no better. Here. And the rest of her flowers page is here.

Awright. Flower links from deepest Hades. I just hit the search engines.

For a couple of webrings devoted to roses, check out the Perfect Rose webring and the Antique Rose webring.

Here is the American Rose Society, the World Federation of Roses, and the Royal National Rose Society. Plus the Royal Horticultural Society just for the fun of it.

Plus this wonderful, wonderful site that keeps attracting my attention: Yesterday's Rose, this wonderful antique rose site that you'll just fall in love with.

These cool flower photographs from Japan.

A look at some English rose gardens.

Plus this really neat English charity that focuses on getting native wildflowers replanted in English soil. I love this site. Love it.

And the American equivalent (or one of them): this really cool site on prairie wildflowers, getting them replanted in native soil, and why it's so important to the land.

And some crystal vases to keep them all in.

Wow. Everybody flowered out? If not, go check out the funeral photos. It may be a while before we've all had our fill, but these are sites I've fallen in love with. And there may be more on the way. I may take a notion....

Chocolate. I was working on this page and I got a notion for some chocolate. Diana didn't like chocolate, did she? Naw.

Cadbury's. Ghirardelli. This wonderful chocoholic linkpage. And this chocolate webzine that promises it's going to have even more this month on a regular basis.

At some point I will come back to these pages, but as they are, they are a quite credible philosophical statement and one I feel I can face the "Diana freaks" with. A real, thoughtful Diana page takes time and effort, not just rambling and whining in whatever direction you choose. I've done quite a bit of that here. This is both a promise of more at some indefinite point and an announcement that these pages are going to rest for a while. Give me a few months...this is a huge site and other areas have been starving.

Whoops. Did I say that?

:-)

The official Diana grieving pages are at the official British Monarchy pages. The Memorial Fund donation site (and if you have a Diana page, I am assuming this is on it so I don't have to cuss you out about not practicing what you preach) is right here. Thank you.

There is this incredible Diana site. Resources from darkest Hades. It is here. It defies all my efforts to outdo it. Maybe I'm supposed to direct my efforts in some other direction. Gorgeous, gorgeous art and background every time I look. And it seems really sincere, instead of just fluffy. And yes, there is hope that technical standards and neatness can overcome sheer emotion of the moment -- I don't think I've caught a single misspelling yet.

Essays


The Death of Illusion.