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The Blue Pill

‘It doesn’t require a vast leap of psychoanalytic speculation,’ William Davies writes on the LRB blog, ‘to surmise that feelings may attach themselves to iconic public objects which are really about something or someone else altogether.’ So take the blue pill and read more about the new spirit of gratitude, the Queue, Nicholas Witchell, Diana’s funeral, the past and future of The Firm and what remains of monarchy without majesty.

Thank who?

William Davies, 16 September 2022

It doesn’t require a vast leap of psychoanalytic speculation to surmise that feelings may attach themselves to iconic public objects which are really about something or someone else altogether. ‘She reminded me of my nan,’ the mourners say, and the image is of a selfless woman slogging through years of work for others because that’s her lot in life. This probably bears scant resemblance to the actual experiences of Elizabeth Windsor, but a great deal to those of many grandmothers over the past seventy years.

The Death Parade

Andrew O’Hagan, 9 September 2022

Overnight, the newspapers got in on the act, behaving as if history were simply a concatenation of our large feelings. ‘Our Hearts Are Broken,’ the Daily Mail screams. ‘How to find the words? Our grief is a hundred different emotions, all of them hard to grasp.’ (Is shame an emotion, and is it hard to grasp?) ‘We Loved You, Ma’am,’ roars the Sun, which changed its banner from red to purple. It seems consistent with the general nullity that the papers emoting most extravagantly are the ones that made the queen suffer the most.

Puffed up, Slapped down: Charles and Camilla

Rosemary Hill, 7 September 2017

As he faced his 30th birthday he addressed the Cambridge Union in hair-raisingly ingenuous terms: ‘My great problem in life is that I do not really know what my role in life is.’ None of the journalists he complained about could have said anything more undermining.

Mass-Observation in the Mall

Ross McKibbin, 2 October 1997

The week before Princess Diana’s funeral and the funeral itself were, by agreement, a remarkable moment in the history of modern Britain, but most of us, despite broadsheet press commentary...

Hatpin through the Brain: Closing Time for the Firm

Jonathan Meades, 9 June 2022

They recognise the swoon in a fawner’s eye, the brisk music of a colour sergeant’s bark. They are touched by the public’s fondness for plastic union flags in the drizzle. They believe that when it comes to Maundy alms, it’s the thought that counts. They appreciate the fealty of those maimed in the sovereign’s name who dutifully strive to give great forelock even if the stump can’t reach the hairline.

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