to think the common idea that Diana was murdered is absurd

[makkapacca]

Heard a journalist on the radio the other day speculating it was not an accident and heard others saying the same. AIBU to think people like this are complete idiots?

I think that’s also in part why people are so fascinated by Kate Middleton — another ordinary, privileged past with houseshares and make-uppy non-jobs and terrible clothes decisions, and then after she married in, the perfect royal wife, utterly discreet, perfectly dressed, not an unscripted word even breathed. The un-Diana. It’s impossible to imagine her looking coyly up through her mascara to complain about William’s philandering to the BBC, or being discovered with a man behind a pot plant in KP during a fire alarm.

Kate Middleton does not have the same level of public interest as Diana. She doesn't sell media in the same way.
Instead it is notable that lots of articles about Kate that are clearly only about her, shoehorn in Harry and Meghan, as the media know the public are interested in that story.

@Itsnotover

It's not my sentiment that's racist it's the reality of the times 25 years ago.

No, it's really not.

Mohammed al fayed said also that it was because he was Muslim.

Mohammed Al Fayed said a lot of things.

Yes it really is. How old were you in 1997? Times and viewpoints have changed massively in 25 years.

@Monopolyiscrap

Kate Middleton does not have the same level of public interest as Diana. She doesn't sell media in the same way. Instead it is notable that lots of articles about Kate that are clearly only about her, shoehorn in Harry and Meghan, as the media know the public are interested in that story.

Diana wouldn't sell media in the same way if she was around today. She was very much a product of the media culture of the time, which is long gone.

Diana wouldn't be Diana if she were young now. More likely she'd be having a go at being a model or actress, like Kitty Spencer, Cressida Bonas and so many other tall pretty posh gels.

@Monopolyiscrap

Kate Middleton does not have the same level of public interest as Diana. She doesn't sell media in the same way. Instead it is notable that lots of articles about Kate that are clearly only about her, shoehorn in Harry and Meghan, as the media know the public are interested in that story.

No, because her private life isn’t emerging into the public domain likeDiana’s did, partly through intrusive paps, but also partly through her own connivance, planting of stories and photo ops etc. I think that’s the source of such interest as there is in KM — the carefully-presented, calculatedly inoffensive public face concealing - what?

Diana was clearly motivated to do good as well. So I doubt your assessment of her if she was born now.
Her work with AIDS and Landmines was not glamorous or the usual kind of Royal Family work. It wasn't turning up to the BAFTAs or a sports event wearing a pretty dress and having some photos taken. She was serious about making the world a better place.

@InisnaBro Kate Middleton gets good popularity ratings. But there isn't that much interest in stories the media publish about her. There isn't even that much talk on the RF board here about her. But start a thread about Harry and Meghan and it will explode.
Diana used to be the same. People were very interested in reading and talking about her.

Kate Middleton doesn't as far as we know ring up members of the press and say "I shall be taking the children to x place at y time tomorrow, if anyone wants photos", as Diana has been reported by retired journalists as having done. (Well, we haven't been treated to pictures of her and her children in a McDonalds so I think we can assume she hasn't.) The journalists' complaint was that when they did turn up to her rendezvous with them, Diana then made a fuss to other members of the press about her never having any privacy.

In other words Kate is not a self-absorbed publicity-hound, and Diana was. The press corps knew this very well, and indulged her; it sold papers, and that paid their salaries.

People don't gossip about Kate because there is nothing much to gossip about. Some of the press did their best to stir up rubbish about whether she was too thin, but she neither denied it nor got obviously upset, so it was no fun for them.

@Monopolyiscrap

Diana was clearly motivated to do good as well. So I doubt your assessment of her if she was born now. Her work with AIDS and Landmines was not glamorous or the usual kind of Royal Family work. It wasn't turning up to the BAFTAs or a sports event wearing a pretty dress and having some photos taken. She was serious about making the world a better place.

And yet she publicly abandoned almost all of 'her' charities just weeks before the accident, and left almost all of her money to her already extremely well provided for sons.

Not saying she didn't have genuine charitable intentions, but she was never going to devote her life to charity. Hard to see how she would be able to finance it and also live in the style to which she was accustomed. In any case, why can't a model or an actress also do good deeds?

Diana actually used to play games with the press/paps. Use them when it suited her and then pretend they wouldn't leave her alone. She regularly called them in advance to let them know she would be in a certain place at a certain time, much like the celebrities of today do. If you play with fire enough times then eventually you will get burned. As for pp saying they are unsure if the body guard was wearing a belt, his biography stated he was wearing one. Thats the only reason he survived. The only other injuries Diana had apart from the one that killed her were a broken arm and a cut on her forehead. She would also be alive had she worn a belt.

@Monopolyiscrap

Diana was clearly motivated to do good as well. So I doubt your assessment of her if she was born now. Her work with AIDS and Landmines was not glamorous or the usual kind of Royal Family work. It wasn't turning up to the BAFTAs or a sports event wearing a pretty dress and having some photos taken. She was serious about making the world a better place.

If she'd remained a not-very-bright nursery teacher's assistant, unknown to press and public alike and without the money to travel round the world at will, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that anyone would have either known or cared what she thought about landmines, or AIDS, or indeed anything. So really, the person to thank for her doing any good is whoever selected her to marry Prince Charles; without that she couldn't have done it.

Also, people seem to forget, she’d been dating Dodi for a month ffs. That’s it. It was hardly the romance of the century.

That's right. A put up job by Dodi's Dad. Diana was flown by helicopter and plonked in front of Dodi. That's how they were introduced.

She got the opportunity to pose about on a millionaire's yacht in the summer in a selection of swimwear. Sometimes gushing all over Dodi (on the deck of said yacht) because she knew the paparazzi were watching.

He was just being courteous most of the time. It seems to me they didn't have anything in common and didn't really know what to say to each other.

On their dates, they acted like a couple of clueless 12 year old kids. Dodi was just pretty much going along with it because his Dad told him to and because what his Dad wanted i.e. a foot into the 'British Establishment.'

Dodi had no time for British VIP protocol and whined to his Dad which is why the then off duty and drinking pastis driver ended up driving. Only too pleased for an opportunity to impress his boss.

'You won't catch us tonight' he goaded the waiting paparazzi.

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@InisnaBro Kate Middleton gets good popularity ratings. But there isn't that much interest in stories the media publish about her. There isn't even that much talk on the RF board here about her. But start a thread about Harry and Meghan and it will explode.
Diana used to be the same. People were very interested in reading and talking about her.[/quote]
I'm not sure being click bait is such a great thing.

Kate has been famous for pretty much all her adult life, but we really know very little about what she's 'really like'. She's an enigma. Given that she's going to remain a public figure for decades to come, that's a good thing. Inviting drama into your life isn't really a sustainable way to live.

If she'd remained a not-very-bright nursery teacher's assistant, unknown to press and public alike and without the money to travel round the world at will, there is not a snowball's chance in hell that anyone would have either known or cared what she thought about landmines, or AIDS, or indeed anything. So really, the person to thank for her doing any good is whoever selected her to marry Prince Charles; without that she couldn't have done it.

This^

She could have married some other chinless wonder and gone quietly to hell holding a gin bottle somewhere in the home counties.

She could also as a member of the RF have simply worn a pretty dress to the BAFTAs, sporting events and visited a few hospices. Instead, Diana highlighted controversial causes and did some good in doing so.

@IcedPurple that is not true. After her Divorce, Diana dropped a lot of her Royal patronages.
Just a few weeks before her death she was working on landmines.
Criticise her if you want, but make them truthful.

That's what I mean, @IcedPurple -- what interests people that someone else young and pretty married a high-profile royal in line to the throne, and has remained a well-behaved (un-Diana-like) enigma.

And absolutely, KM is behaving in her own best interests to provide no tabloid fodder whatsoever, though the downside is insane micro-expression and body language 'analysis' of her briefest public moments.

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@IcedPurple that is not true. After her Divorce, Diana dropped a lot of her Royal patronages.
Just a few weeks before her death she was working on landmines.
Criticise her if you want, but make them truthful.[/quote]
She voluntarily gave up helping over 100 charities of which she had once been patron, which was described as 'devastating' to those charities.

I never said she didn't continue to work for some charities, but it is a fact that she drastically cut down on her 'charity work' after the divorce, and that she left almost nothing to charity. She did do a lot of good and was genuinely compassionate, but I don't see her as ever being either willing or able to make a whole life out of charity work.

@InisnaBro

That's what I mean, *@IcedPurple* -- what interests people that someone else young and pretty married a high-profile royal in line to the throne, and has remained a well-behaved (un-Diana-like) enigma.

And absolutely, KM is behaving in her own best interests to provide no tabloid fodder whatsoever, though the downside is insane micro-expression and body language 'analysis' of her briefest public moments.

Yes, Kate is a model of discretion and inscrutability. I'm sure during her break up with William, she could have sold her story to the papers and lived off the money for the rest of her life, but she has always played a superb long game.

She was probably fed guff about Jackie Onassis on a yacht, to get her to go/stay. JO would have been an obvious rôle-model, the difference between them being that Jackie Kennedy was beloved, never in any way betrayed her husband, was a tragic widow, and had good qualifications (she graduated well from Vasser) and had started on a successful career before she married. JO was genuinely hounded by the paperazzi, so I suppose that's a point of similarity.

@IcedPurple after her divorce she dropped 94 patronages, not over 100. Many of these were the great and good charities that are common Royal patronages. It was directly linked to her divorce and no longer being a member of the Royal Family.
Harry and Meghan did the same. I am not sure why you would expect an ex-member of the Royal Family to pretend they are still one?

@IcedPurple I am not interested in Kate. But you do like to rewrite history. There have been plenty of controversies around Kate in the past.

"She" at the start of my post being Diana, not Kate!

[quote Monopolyiscrap]@IcedPurple after her divorce she dropped 94 patronages, not over 100. Many of these were the great and good charities that are common Royal patronages. It was directly linked to her divorce and no longer being a member of the Royal Family.
Harry and Meghan did the same. I am not sure why you would expect an ex-member of the Royal Family to pretend they are still one?[/quote]
I'm not going to quibble over the numbers but most of these patronages weren't 'royal', strictly speaking. She could have continued to maintain a relationship with most of them had she wished, and the charities only learned of her decision through the newspapers.

But how do you think she was going to maintain a life of philanthropy? She was used to a pretty high standard of living and seemed to quite enjoy the red carpet events. How do you think she could have funded a life of 'good deeds' indefinitely?

@IcedPurple It was reported at the time that she couldn't afford to carry on being Patron to so many charities. And that she thought they would be better having a Royal Patron. Yes they should have been told by her or her staff beforehand. It was announced on the day her divorce came through. It was directly linked. Diana did write to the charities.
Diana had over 100 patronages which is too much really. Kate has 19 patronages by comparison. Now 21 with the new Rugby ones.
Diana had a divorce settlement.