I mean, I'd never heard of "Innocent Victims," and suddenly I'm looking at this picture:
cc Bobak Ha'Eri.
Now, I see that back in January, it was reported "Harrods reveal plans to remove Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed statue":
Over the years, shoppers and fans have flocked to the Knightsbridge department store to see the statue, which is entitled 'Innocent Victims'. The bronze design shows Diana and Dodi dancing under the wings of a flying albatross, a bird that is said to symbolise the Holy Spirit. Dodi's father commissioned his close friend William Mitchell to create the sculpture to keep the couple's "spirit alive". The memorial was erected in 2005.Flocked... to see a bird...
At first, I assumed the statue was being removed because it's so atrocious, but it's to give the statue to Dodi Fayed's father, who used to own Harrods but sold it.
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It's not the most atrocious statue Mohamed Al Fayed bought.
He's a fairly tragic figure. And I don't know of a way to say this without sounding condescending, but he seems to have wanted to be the ultimate Englishman: owning Harrods, owning a Premier League soccer team, his son was all set to marry an actual honest to god princess. And none of it exactly worked out.
They omitted one (I exclude the driver):
Trevor Rees-Jones (also known as Trevor Rees; born 3 March 1968) is a British bodyguard who was badly injured in the car crash in Paris that killed Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997. Because he suffered a serious head injury, Rees-Jones does not recall many details.
Early media reports claimed he survived because he was wearing a seat belt,[1] but a December 2006 Operation Paget technical examination said that none of the occupants of the car were wearing their seat belt.
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So, perhaps dumb victims rather than innocent victims. Or both.
Dodi was flocking Diana six ways to Sunday.
Flocked... to see a bird...
She mocked.
In hoc signo victims.
It's a sin to mock a flocking bird.
"Innocent Victims"? Good lord, that's laying it on a little thick isn't it? I mean, sure, it was tragic and avoidable. But the phenomenon of the paparazzi is a symptom of a much larger human problem: The obsession with royalty, celebrity, and the deification of such people (that this statue ironically encourages more of rather than discourages).
Since when does having an affair == innocent?
Diana was a princess fucker, while Dodi was a princess-fucker.
Innocent victims? As opposed to Guilty Victims?
Albatross: Reminds me of The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner and Monty Python's question, "What flavor is the albatross?"
Now there's some bronze that needs recasting.
The notion that you can't mock a bad sculpture because it depicts someone who died young is ridiculous... even dangerous.
In fact, you can mock the person who died young. It's only bad to laugh at the death itself.
Mohamed blamed the Palace, IIRC, to deflect his own guilt from pushing his son on her (figuratively) and his drunk driver.
Mohamed Al Fayed, Dodi's father, did not responded well to death of his eldest son. I lived in England in early 2000's and Al Fayed was in news often peddling theory that MI6 and Queen's husband Prince Philip had his son and Princess Diana assassinated.
Kitsch + time can sometimes equal art. There's a bit of kitsch to the Statue of Liberty, but the kitsch is reassuring and welcoming. Statuary comfort food.......There's a lot of kitsch in Norman Rockwell illustrations, but the illusions you choose to believe about yourself are aspirations rather than delusions. This is a bad statue because who wants to be believe in the sentiment expressed.
I thought MI6 liked that statue. It was a way of bragging on kills done to protect the Monarchy. The Clintons had to hire their own wet work by using Haitian relief donor’s money for both weddings and killings. The Queen gets all that paid for her by the British Government.
I was in Harrods in January and didn't realize the statue's significance until now. It wasn't the best likenesses.
"It's only bad to laugh at the death itself."
That's the "To kill" part of the mocking-bird theme today.
It's only bad to laugh at the death itself.
Oh. I don't know about that. We laugh at the Darwin Awards all the time. Some deaths are just too stupid to not laugh.
Nice rack.
Don't you know about the bird ? Everybody knows that the bird is a word.
I don’t recall her being that busty. And Fayed couldn’t afford shoes?
"...flying albatross, a bird that is said to symbolise the Holy Spirit."
I thought it was a dove that symbolized the Holy Spirit.
Dodi was Prince William' s father-in-law to be, and Williamwas and is the next King. That Mercedes computer was told to drive itself into the underpass concrete column where Diana could be taken out if alive to a place to kill kill her, just as she had told her friends she knew was Prince Phillip's plan for her death.
Nazis are as Nazis do.
A young woman dies and goes up to heaven. As she is walking around with her guide she sees Mother Theresa standing around with her good friend Princess Diane. But something seems strange. Princess Diana seems to have a halo while Mother Theresa just has her plain nun's veil.
"Excuse me why doesn't Mother Theresa have a halo. If anyone deserves one she should have one."
"We don't have halo's in Heaven. That is just an embellishment by certain artists."
"Well why does Princess Diana have one?"
"That's not a halo that's a steering wheel."
Since when does having an affair == innocent?
When you are a beautiful princess projecting vulnerability. There is a reason there are no similar statues of Charles and Camilla.
It's being removed because it's offensive to the Royal Family. After Fayed put it in, they removed their custom from Harrod's. Fayed defiantly declared that the statute would remain in Harrod's "forever".
Then Fayed sold Harrod's to the Qatar Investment Authority. Unlike Fayed, the QIA has no interest in being offensive to anybody, much less the Queen. (Plus, it probably thinks the statute is atrocious. I mean, who wouldn't? Google some close-ups of Di's face.) The excuses for getting rid of it are mere face-saving.
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