Funeral News September 1997 Check all the clocks, pick up the telephone, Get a good shot of the coffin coming home, Think up a headline, and if it will not come, Interview some mourners - maybe they can give you one. Let news-copters circle, moaning, overhead, Drumming in our minds the message We’re Not Dead, Let the air while Earl Spencer condemns the media in stutters Be riven with the sound of clicking camera shutters. She was our North, TV South, Look East and Look West, Our weekday editions and our Sunday best, Our fourteen page picture story, ever going on - Who will fill the column inches, now that She is gone? The flashbulbs are not wanted now - put out every one, Put away the Mirror and dismantle the Sun, There’s no longer any purpose for the Mail or Express, For our rapacious appetite now has one target less. c. Ben JR Shillito 1998
Reason for writing:
Written on the evening of the day of Princess Diana's funeral, a bit of a rail against the endless hypocrisy of the British media. Also, I thought, a nice excuse to pay homage to Auden.
Birth sign: Not entered
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