The return to the news of Earl Spencer has been an odd throwback this week, as he appeared on both the documentary, Diana, Our Mother, and on BBC radio, reminiscing about his sister 20 years after her death. Thanks to the Queen’s longevity and the rehabilitating influence of the Netflix series The Crown, the royal family in general and the Queen in particular appear to be as popular as they’ve ever been in modern times. Even Charles and Camilla seem like a harmless old couple.
And so to see Spencer – a pasty-faced young man of 33 when his sister died, now every inch the portly Earl – was a reminder of the days when the royals were in turmoil and each seemed as dreadful as the next.
Anniversary journalism is by its nature benign. Even so, the senior royals must have considered it a risk to have gone ahead with the documentary, in which William and Harry shared their memories of their mother and some insights into their grief. It was touching, the way they spoke of her with a combination of modern openness, natural resistance to pain and, in William’s case at least, an occasional shuttering that reminded one of the weight of his future.
It was a programme about the love of a mother for her two sons, and in crass terms, the scoop on their last conversations with her, previously unshared reflections, and private photos. It was also, by virtue of the fact it avoided the subject, a reminder of the nation’s extraordinary reaction at the time – not the public grief, but the public anger towards Charles and the Queen over their perceived coldness. And although, for obvious reasons, the programme ignored this to focus on Diana, I found myself thinking more than once about Charles.
The memories of those who had met Diana, meanwhile, preserved for 20 years and perhaps given more weight than their bearers might otherwise have given them, were juxtaposed with scenes of William and Harry carrying on their late mother’s work. I have felt soft towards the royals for some time, but watching the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge labour to make small talk with quivering members of the public seemed to me a dispiriting sight. It is the paradox of royalty that 20 years ago we clamoured for its modernisation; and now these two “boys” of Diana’s, who seem rather nice and halfway normal, only make the whole business of royalty seem more weird.
Not lovin’ it
McDonald’s has a new advertising slogan playing over its commercials in the US which seems, obliquely, to hold up its hands to a popular criticism: that you can’t raise a family on the wages it pays. “America’s best first job,” runs the voiceover at the end of the ad, which might as well say: “Listen, people, why do you think it’s called a McJob? It’s supposed to be for teenagers who live at home with their parents, not 45-year-olds with three kids who’ve been laid off when their manufacturing jobs moved to the far east, which isn’t our fault, by the way.” It might be clever in terms of positioning, reminding people to trim their expectations when they apply for a McJob, but I don’t know; to me, it has about it a slight air of Gerald Ratner calling his jewellery products “total crap”.
A solitary thought
I watched an HBO documentary this week about a supermax prison in Virginia where inmates, violent offenders all, are locked up for 23 hours a day. With good behaviour they get a TV. The cells are small with a frosted glass window and whitewashed walls. The destructive psychological effects of solitary confinement are well known. Even so, for a moment, I find myself thinking that the peace and quiet of a place where no one is bothering you for dinner or bellowing that their nappy needs changing give a short spell in solitary a warped kind of appeal. But only for a moment.
