"Unlike my other callers, who were stunned, barely able to articulate their condolences and offers of help, he sounded giddily elated — like a lottery winner, I remember thinking at the time."

Writes Earl Spencer, now, about what he says he thought 30 years ago, quoted in "10 key claims in Earl Spencer’s Princess Diana book/Allegations by the princess’s brother provoked an unprecedented response from Buckingham Palace. These further revelations are likely to add fuel to the fire" (London Times).

The Palace rouses itself to call Spencer a liar. I'm paraphrasing. I admire the elaborate prose: "While we do not comment on books as a matter of principle, His Majesty is mindful that the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason, affect judgment and colour memory in ways others do not recognise, even many years after such a loss."

Is President Trump's very big ballroom just for State Dinners or will there be balls?

Balls in the ballroom — what a concept! I know one time Princess Diana and John Travolta danced together at the White House. Was it a full scale ball? Where are the balls of today? It seems that we only have red carpet arrivals and then people sitting around at tables. So this passage jumped out at me as I was reading James Traub's "John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit" (commission earned)("Her" = Adams's wife, Louisa):

Her fortnightly teas became so popular that she tried to restrict the crowd by decreeing that henceforward no dancing would be permitted, but Washington society came and insisted on dancing. Washington now had a little bit of the dazzle the Adamses had known in foreign capitals. When Congress was in session, balls and fine dinners were held almost every night. The most magnificent house in Washington had been empty since its owner, Commodore Stephen Decatur, the great naval hero of the War of 1812, had been killed in a foolish duel in March 1820. But now Baron Hyde de Neuville had purchased the three-story mansion on Lafayette Square and threw splendid parties there. For a time, the Adams house was filled with music and dancing and even giggling and flirting.... A dancing master came for as much as three hours a day to teach all the young folk.

Key words: almost every night. Nowadays, it seems you only hear of balls — the dancing kind of balls (not the "Big Balls" kind of balls) — during inaugurations. I'd like to see Trump's new ballroom used for dancing, and perhaps he's the person to get people dancing. It took a person to incite all that dancing that was going on in Washington circa 1820. Of course, the person was not John Quincy Adams, and it wasn't his wife Louisa. It was Dolley Madison. 

"The usual justification for rehashing Diana’s story is that she — a barely educated aristocrat who married a future king — is just like us..."

"... whoever we might be: feminists, gay people, Jews, Asians, Americans. White is very aware of this and rounds up some of the dafter examples of such deluded narcissism. The journalist Julie Burchill once claimed that Diana ticked off all the classic traits of a Jewish woman: 'Profoundly maternal, disliking horses, strong-nosed, comely, needing too much and giving too much.'"

From "Britain was obsessed with Princess Diana — not any longer/The barely educated aristo was a blank screen on to which we projected our dreams and delusions. Edward White’s biography delves into this strange 'Dianaworld'" (London Times).

Meanwhile, also in the London Times: "Prince Harry: I want reconciliation but the King won’t speak to me/The Duke of Sussex, who opened up in an interview with the BBC, earlier lost his appeal for the right to taxpayer-funded police security" (“So, you know, I miss the UK. I miss parts of the UK. Of course I do. And I think that it’s really quite sad that I won’t be able to show, you know, my children my homeland.... Of course, some members of my family will never forgive me for writing a book...')."

"The women have historically served as a combination of brood mares and mannequins. Their job is to stay thin, say little..."

"... look good in clothes, and produce heirs who will stay thin, say little and look good in clothes. (Prince Philip was said to have approved of Diana’s entry into the family because she would 'breed in some height.') When something threatens the reputation of a more senior, male Windsor, the women have another essential role: human shield. Has King Edward VIII abdicated and run off to France to be with Wallis Simpson? Let’s be sure to blame the American divorcée. Has Prince Charles taken a mistress? Blame his mom for not letting her son marry his true love; blame his wife for not keeping him faithful — oh, and call the mistress ugly. Has Prince Harry declined to perform his family duties and decamped for sunny California? Let’s blame his 'narcissistic' wife for ensorcelling him!"

Writes Jennifer Weiner, in "How the Windsor Women Became Human Shields" (NYT).

It had seemed, until recently, that "Catherine might become the rule-proving exception, the single privileged Windsor wife allowed to float above the fray." But then something popped in her abdomen.

Is anyone watching the new season of "The Crown"?

I was excited about the premiere of the new season on November 16th, and I started to watch episode 1.

I got about 15 minutes into it and impulsively switched over to the Criterion Channel, where I browsed the "Pre-Code Divas" collection, picked one almost at random, and watched it straight through to the end.

I tried watching the rest of that "Crown" episode the next day and only got through about another 15 minutes before giving up. Turned the TV off entirely.

Why is it so unwatchable? I'm not even up to the really bad thing that I've seen spoiled in various reviews. And by "really bad thing," I don't mean that Diana dies in a car crash. That can't be spoiled, and the show puts that first, before the opening credits, so at least you're spared wondering how they will depict that. (They show the car entering the tunnel, and you hear a crash.)

No, what I saw spoiled is this, so don't go there if you're avoiding spoilers. I'll just say I hate that device, but I hadn't got there yet. Should I force myself to watch to the end of the series because I've come so far?

"One iconic moment was predictably included in the Netflix show to underline Diana’s supposed superiority as a parent."

"During a 1991 trip to Canada, Diana raced along the deck of the royal yacht Britannia with arms open wide and scooped up William and Harry with a huge hug in a blaze of camera flashes. She had, in fact, deliberately run ahead of Charles when they approached the ship, leaving him to catch up. He, too, publicly gave his sons hugs and kisses, but only one photograph of his affectionate embrace appeared in the press, while newspapers around the world led with Diana’s radiant display."

 From "Prince Harry’s attacks on King in Netflix series may mean no way back/The criticism of Charles was insidious and he was given no credit for what he did as a father" (London Times). 

"'Monarchy is God’s sacred mission to grace and dignify the Earth,' Queen Mary says sternly. 'To give ordinary people an ideal to strive toward.'"

"Elizabeth, inscrutable even in her younger years, gives her a long look. If it was wishful thinking in Season 1, it is a joke by Season 5. The new season, which premieres Wednesday, finds the royal family in 1991, in the thick of one of the ugliest periods of its recent history.... Conveniently for the real-life king... the show’s depiction of the dissolution of his marriage to Diana presents a challenge to the version of events that has calcified into the American collective memory over the past three decades. Season 4 reinforced that version: Diana’s struggles with depression and self-harming behaviors were portrayed as outgrowths of the royal family’s chilly demeanor and tacit approval of her husband’s infidelity. But Season 5 presents a reversal. Charles? Less evil than you think, it seems to say. Diana? Kind of a little twerp, now and again.... [B]y the time she quips her famous 'I’d like to be queen of people’s hearts' line to Bashir, it feels almost duplicitous."

From "‘The Crown,’ good as ever, may change your opinion of Charles and Diana/Season 5 of the Netflix drama finds the royals spiraling into chaos but tells compelling stories about almost all of them" by Ashley Fetters Maloy (WaPo).

By the way, I love the name Ashley Fetters Maloy. I've been noticing names that form sentences since I encountered the surname Peed — 40 years ago.

"King Charles... is shown lobbying Prime Minister John Major in a bizarre attempt to force his mother’s abdication."

"It also depicts Charles bitterly arguing with Diana as their divorce looms, and romancing Camilla, now Queen Consort, including a dramatisation of the notorious ‘tampongate’ phone call. A production source said that media outrage over inaccuracies – and the lack of sensitivity in airing the series so close to the death of the Queen – is ‘spooking’ the broadcaster..... An entire plotline is, to this end, devoted to suggesting that [Prince Philip] pursued a scandalous extra-marital affair with Penelope Knatchbull, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma... Needless to say, there’s no credible evidence that such an exchange took place, or that Philip was anything other than a devoted husband to Her Majesty. Suggesting otherwise, so soon after both of their deaths, is at best distasteful and at worst downright cruel. Then there are episodes which appear to lend credibility to the barmy conspiracy theory that Princess Diana was murdered.... [Peter Morgan, the show's creator, has said] that Queen Elizabeth II was ‘of limited intelligence'... [and]  the Royal Family ‘survival organisms, like a mutating virus,’ [and] the Queen’s belief in Christianity was ‘deranged’ and the monarchy itself is ‘insane.’"

From "Netflix bosses 'are spooked by backlash over The Crown'/Show's creator Peter Morgan is 'increasingly uncomfortable' as producers are slammed over 'malicious' storylines in new series covering royal family's turbulent 1990s" (Daily Mail).

Judging from that article and the comments over there, I'd say people in Britain are disgusted by the prospect of a new season of "The Crown." Here in America, though, we love it. We understand fictionalization, and too bad if the people depicted are still alive. If they're rich enough, powerful enough, or evil enough, we're fine with using them in whatever interesting stories filmmakers want to spin out. 

We've seen movies about Dick Cheney and Mark Zuckerberg, for example. We watch these things and maybe discuss the truth/fiction ratio on the side if that's also entertaining. And quite aside from the art of film, the news itself is also something with a variable truth/fiction ratio. We've oriented ourselves to that mystery of human communication.

Freedom of speech breathes a murky atmosphere.

"Did she really clear the room of staff by saying she wished to masturbate, or was it the cheddar and crackers I foolishly had before bed?"

"This is a total cheese dream of a film —did she really just eat a pearl? — but also it’s a riveting one as well as a thrillingly entertaining one. Plus it all somehow feels true even if it isn’t. Broken woman, unfeeling family. That seems about right.... It is billed as ‘a fable from a true tragedy,’ whatever that might mean, and Diana’s marriage to Charles is irrevocably on the rocks but the family still imagine she can be brought to heel.... Sandringham, with its endlessly long corridors, is like that hotel in The Shining, but colder....  At one point she pulls from her neck the pearl necklace Charles had given her — he gave the same one to Camilla — the pearls fall into her soup, and she eats them, with great cracking sounds. Crazy, but we get it.... [T]his film is so clever that you also understand why they loathed her, why she was so annoying...."

Writes Deborah Ross in "A riveting cheese dream of a film: Spencer reviewed/Kristen Stewart looks nothing like Diana but is somehow Diana. I think it’s called ‘great acting’" (The Spectator).

Ha ha. That made me want to see the movie, but I'm not willing to sit through a movie wearing a mask, so that leaves the question whether and where it's streaming. Too complicated!

"'Spencer' is, in many ways, baloney, abundantly spiced with slander. It is contemptuous of those whom it accuses..."

"... of treating Diana with contempt. Although [her confidante] Maggie says to her, 'Don’t see conspiracy everywhere,' the film sees nothing but. I can’t decide what made me laugh louder: the dead pheasant, stiffly positioned on the road at the entrance to Sandringham, like a prop from a Monty Python sketch, or the Prince of Wales informing his wife that 'you have to be able to make your body do things you hate.' He sounds like a Pilates instructor.... For all its follies, I would rather watch it again than sit through further episodes of 'The Crown.' The sight of that show clawing toward the credible, without ever quite getting there, is painful to behold, whereas [Spencer's director Pablo] Larraín is somehow freed by the liberties that he takes with historical facts.... [H]e tunes in to Diana’s high anxiety; the camera is constantly on her, with her, and around her, as if drunk on her perception of the world...."

Writes Anthony Lane in The New Yorker, reviewing the new movie "Spencer," about Princess Diana, played by Kristen Stewart. Here's a trailer for the movie.

"Last Friday, Netflix premiered a filmed, eerily audience-less performance of Diana, a new musical about the late Princess of Wales that was set to open on Broadway in 2020 before the pandemic scuttled its plans."

"Though it will finally make its bow on the Great White Way later this fall, those champing at the bit to see a singing, occasionally dancing Diana and QEII and Camilla Parker Bowles can simply watch Diana at home. The question, then, is this: has Diana ruined it for [the indie 'arthouse' movie] Spencer? Quality wise, no. Spencer offers a compelling new take on the lore of Princess Di, depicting her in intimate and probing closeup as she makes perhaps the biggest decision of her adult life...."

 
From "Maybe a Princess Diana Musical Wasn’t Such a Great Idea/Set to open on Broadway this fall, but already on Netflix, Diana could mean bad things for the whole Diana industry" (Vanity Fair).

Who can say when the hunger for all things Diana will end? I don't think one crappy musical will spoil it. And musicals always have people singing and dancing in ways that don't really fit the events the story depicts.

My problem with the musical Diana is right there in the photograph at the link. Diana looks cut off at the knees. In real life, Diana and Charles were the same height, 5'10", but in this show he's a head taller. Here, I made some tiny screen shots to show the difference in height (which just happen also to show a big difference in emotion):

"It’s a little, um, unsettling that the only part of the third child that’s visible from the front is some feet and a hand pointing out into the distance."

"The proportions of life-size children statues always fall a little too deep into the uncanny valley for me. Most importantly, of all Princess Di’s iconic outfits... this is the look they choose? Regardless, it is an impressive piece of art, and I will award bonus points for the inclusion of a belted waist, a rare and bold choice among statues.... Both Prince William and Prince Harry unveiled the statue together, taking a subsequent moment to appreciate all its life-size-ness."

From New York Magazine's article about the new Princess Diana statue, "Please Admire This Statue’s Big Belt."

I'm surprised to see the theme of large white benefactor looming over smaller darker folk, which was the sculptoral sin ascribed to the Teddy Roosevelt statue that has to come down from in front of the Museum of Natural History.  

ADDED:

"In an echo of his mother, Harry repeatedly entwined the intimate details of his mental health struggles with attacks on his family."

"He accused his father of emotional neglect and his family of insisting he 'play the game' and bury his feelings of anxiety and helplessness. He even questioned the way the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had raised their children, describing a cycle of 'genetic pain and suffering' they supposedly created. In fact, Prince Charles may have been too soft as a parent, in contrast to his own father’s rigour. Equally, Harry’s characterisation of Charles as unsympathetic about mental health was wide of the mark. Only months into their marriage, after Diana had shown symptoms of depression and anxiety, Charles introduced Diana to a psychotherapist in London, Dr Alan McGlashan. Diana saw him briefly, and Charles ended up in therapy with him for 14 years."

From "Like Diana, Harry doesn’t see the damage his interviews are doing" by Sally Bedell Smith (London Times).

"My father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and I, 'Well, it was like that for me, so it’s going to be like that for you.'"

"Harry said. One of his most traumatic moments as a child, Harry said, was when he followed his mother’s horse-drawn casket in a public funeral cortege at age 12, passing throngs of onlookers, many of them openly sobbing — and staring at him. 'The thing I remember the most was the sound of the horses’ hoofs going along the Mall,' Harry told Winfrey. 'It was like I was outside of my body and just walking along doing what was expected of me. [I was] showing one-tenth of the emotion that everybody else was showing: This was my mum — you never even met her,' he said."

From "Prince Harry tells Oprah Winfrey of his excessive drinking and drug use — and says the royal family made him 'suffer' as a child" (WaPo).

AND: With all respect to Harry's suffering, well described in that passage, I do wish he'd have said: "My father used to say to me when I was younger, he used to say to both William and me...." Notice he used "me" when "William and" wasn't interposed between the subject "My father"/"he" and the first-person pronoun. He said "My father used to say to me" but then lost his grammatical way after he saw the need to include William: "he used to say to both William and I." 

This sort of error — an error of over-correction — usually seems to be caused by insecurity about one's education. You have the urge to say it the way that is actually right, but you don't trust yourself and you also don't understand the grammatical rule, so you reach for something that feels more elegant — "I" rather than "me." Could Harry possibly feel that he needs to strain to be elegant? Maybe he does. What's the point of being royal if you don't feel royal? 

And I guess that's the point of absconding to America.

Something made me click on "Prince Harry Is a Newly Minted Start-up Bro" at The Cut.

But no sooner did I get there than I instinctively took the exit route provided at the top of the "Most Viewed" list:

"Why Did Princess Diana’s Hair Look Like That?" 

The new news of Harry's ascension to some bogus position in a start up (BetterUp) had less meaning to me than the old non-news of Diana's hair!

“This was pre-tabloid culture. Ordinary people didn’t know about Sloanes,” says [journalist Peter] York, explaining how an Über-bougie cult of overprivileged L.L.Bean worshippers could exist in near-complete segregation from the masses. That all changed overnight as the press started to gather outside Diana’s flat, and suddenly Sloane style was seen “galloping down high street.” It’s ironic, York adds, because if Diana had just moved to the country with a low-key aristocrat like most Sloanes, she would have adopted a Sloane-mum hairstyle — longer and pushed back with a velvet hairband. Instead, she married a prince, and her look — as common as a brass-buttoned blazer in her peer group — became a totally singular statement.

That is more interesting than Harry the  Newly Minted Start-up Bro.

The actor who plays Prince Charles in "The Crown" and the actress who plays Princess Diana both won Golden Globes last night.

Here they are — Josh O'Connor and Emma Corrin — in their biggest scene together in the finale of Season 4:

 

I've watched Season 4 twice (and the rest of "The Crown" once), and I love this scene. Charles is both horrible and yet — somehow — sympathetic. 

"You think we couldn't do that too? Theatrically hug the wretched and dispossessed and cover ourselves in glory all over the front pages?"

"The recently released fourth season of 'The Crown'... has been criticized for not laying out that much of the drama is fictionalized..."

"... causing online trolls to attack the Duchess of Cornwall, so much so that Clarence House has restricted Twitter comments. Seemingly in response to commentary over the new season, Netflix promoted their documentary 'Diana: In Her Own Words" which uses the recordings she made for Andrew Morton’s tell-all biography," says ET Canada, pointing at this devastating 3-minute clip:

The documentary DIANA: IN HER OWN WORDS answers much of what you’re asking pic.twitter.com/85gFfVir7h

— NetflixFilm (@NetflixFilm) December 1, 2020

The Times of London wrote about the documentary a couple weeks ago: 

"Behind the frustration with 'The Crown' is a recognition that, right or wrong, its version of the royal family is likely to serve as the go-to narrative for a generation of viewers..."

"... particularly young ones, who do not remember the 1980s, let alone the more distant events covered in earlier seasons. 'They’ll watch it and think this is the way it was,' said Dickie Arbiter, who served as a press secretary to the queen from 1988 to 2000. He took issue with parts of the plot, including a scene in which aides to Charles question Diana about whether she is mentally stable enough to travel alone to New York City. 'I was actually at that meeting,' Mr. Arbiter said. 'No courtier would ever say that in a million years.' The biggest problem, said Penny Junor, who has written biographies of Charles, Diana and Mrs. Thatcher, is that 'The Crown'... poses a particular threat to Charles, who arguably comes off worst in the series.... 'It is wonderful television.... It is beautifully acted — the mannerisms are perfect. But it is fiction, and it is very destructive.'"

From "‘The Crown’ Stokes an Uproar Over Fact vs. Entertainment Dramatic liberties in the latest season of the Netflix series, covering the turbulent 1980s, are annoying Britons who wrote of that period, even among those who disparage the royals" (NYT). 

I'd avoided "The Crown," but in the last 2 weeks, I've watched the first 7 episodes of Season 4. After seeing the first 3 episodes, I subscribed to Netflix, something I'd been avoiding for years. I'm now a Netflix person, and I find it quite mesmerizing. I'll finally be able to cancel the cable service — which is so much more expensive and which I wasn't watching at all.

Anyway... historical fiction. What do you expect? You've got to criticize the inaccuracies but also realize that this is the way it's done. It's a much bigger problem that journalism is inaccurate and unprofessional. But it's completely professional for television and movie dramas to twist characters and events to make things exciting and interesting. How else can you do it?

I liked Junor's statement — "the mannerisms are perfect. But it is fiction, and it is very destructive." The "perfect" mannerisms — how can the be "perfect" and yet fictional? — belong especially to the Charles character. Are they "destructive" because they are true or "destructive" because they are false?

"Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have reportedly agreed to film a fly-on-the-wall reality show..."

"The Duke and Duchess of Sussex were initially expected to only remain behind the camera for their multi-year deal with Netflix.... The pair will allow Netflix cameras to follow them for three months in a 'tasteful' docuseries as they go about their new life in ritzy Montecito, California.... Another source insisted that the docuseries will mostly focus on their 'philanthropy rather than what they get up to behind closed doors,' and it is not clear if cameras will be allowed in their new $14 million mansion.... 'We were told they had gone to California for greater privacy so it all appears rather hypocritical,' Ingrid Seward, editor of Majesty Magazine, told The Sun. 'It is extraordinary. This is exactly what they said they wouldn’t do. The more they talk about themselves the more people will want them to do just that and won’t be interested in anything else they have to offer.'... [Piers Morgan said] 'At what point does the penny drop that she came over here, took our prince and now Mrs. Privacy is making a $150 million fly on the wall documentary where every part of their lives is going to be filmed?'"

From Page Six.

How dumb would they need to be to believe they could be paid $150 million to appear on camera doing philanthropy?! Of course, we must get inside their California mansion. But what will make them interesting in there? Him bumbling about and her running the show? Ha ha. I'm picturing something like Season 1 of "The Osbournes."

ADDED: Here's my post from the Harry-and-Meghan wedding day. I observed the body language:

Did anyone count the number of times Harry touched his face?... ... I don't want to be awful... but Harry kept touching and rubbing his face and I just couldn't help thinking about Harry's mother and what I know about the thoughts that rushed through her head on that day that the world watched her bogus "fairytale" wedding.... You can watch all sorts of couples get married — people congregate to witness weddings — but you can't know what the marrying minds are thinking. Is it wrong to look at the outward signs that there is a big disconnect between the spoken words and real person who is enduring the theatrical ritual?

I was trying to be discreet. In the comments, somebody said, "Can’t we just enjoy a wedding?," and I said:

I don't think it's right to enjoy watching the torment of a human being. So, no. But maybe your observation of human facial expression and body language is something you haven't developed or like to turn off when you're trying to have fun, but that's not me!

 Somebody else said, "Let us all aim to spread happiness," and I said:

So it's all about what goal you're hoping to achieve? But even if my main goal were to increase the happiness in the world, I would not believe that the way to do it is to encourage credulous sentimentality about marriage (especially the marriage of royalty).

There was a lot of this sort of thing.

Did anyone count the number of times Harry touched his face?

Nice dress. Tom and Lorenzo opine:

No one should care what these two queens think about wedding gowns, but this style has always been our favorite. It never ages badly. It will always look chic in pictures. From a personal-statement standpoint, we think this is very much of a piece with Meghan’s style, which has shown itself, post-engagement, to be minimalist and cleanly chic in tone. She’s not a gal who goes for a lot of foofaraw....

I wish everyone well.

I was up on my own naturally at 4 a.m., so I watched enough of the show to experience all sorts of feelings — squishy, tender, lofty, queasy... and I don't want to be awful... but Harry kept touching and rubbing his face and I just couldn't help thinking about Harry's mother and what I know about the thoughts that rushed through her head on that day that the world watched her bogus "fairytale" wedding.

So I'll stop here and say good luck to all the newlyweds of this world. I myself got married on a May 19th (45 years ago, in a marriage that lasted 14 years). You can watch all sorts of couples get married — people congregate to witness weddings — but you can't know what the marrying minds are thinking. Is it wrong to look at the outward signs that there is a big disconnect between the spoken words and real person who is enduring the theatrical ritual?