As we listened to the news this morning, we heard that 1,000's were expected to line the streets as Jade Goody's funeral cortege went by. We decided not to join them. It wasn't a difficult decision. We didn't know her personally.
I have a lot of sympathy for her and admire the courage she showed in her life. Lucy Mangan in The Guardian wrote, "First Jade Goody was failed by her family, then by the school system and then by the collective imagination." In spite of those failures, she stood her ground, did much to bring into the open the scourge of cancer and brought some reality to 'reality' television.
But we won't be going to line the funeral route because I'm rather concerned at how we as a nation have started this public mourning for people we've never actually met. It seemed to take off with the death of Princess Diana and since then has become more and more the "thing to do."
What good does this collective grief mania do? Where will it lead? I'm afraid I don't know but I am a little concerned.
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