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Show quote | Sign In to save your setting (remove disclaimer). Photo of Stewart Lee There's this kind of assumption from us here in Europe, particularly in Britain, where we look at Americas hysterical reaction to the 9th of November and we think, That wouldn't happen here because we're reasonable, sensible people here in Britain. But we don't have to look very far back in our own cultural history to see an example of us losing the plot as a nation. I'm talking about the death of Diana, the late Princess of Wales. It was in the news last summer because of the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain, which you'll remember was a rubbish fountain. It fulfilled very few of the job description criteria of fountains. But it's on going, it never goes away. I remember when she died. About two days before the state funeral, I went down to Kensington Palace where Princess Diana had lived to look at all the tributes left outside. And in amongst all the bunches of flowers and sympathy cards and poems little kids had written, and drawings and paintings people had done what ever... In amongst all that, and this is true, I honestly saw a life-size inflatable model of ET. It was there outside Kensington Palace two days before the funeral. And I stood there looking at the inflatable ET for some 40 or 50 minutes. And I thought to myself, How did that get there? Who would have thought that that was an appropriate gesture? I imagined a household somewhere on that awful autumn Sunday morning where perhaps the wife had woken up first and she had watched the news and she went through to her still-sleeping husband, and said: "Please. Please wake up. I need you to wake up and be with me now. There's been some terrible news. I need you to get up, come in the front room and watch it on the television with me cos I can't be alone, so please wake up." But you know, He's asleep. He's going, "What? It's fucking... It's half past 6 on a Sunday morning. I am asleep. I know I'm speaking but I am asleep. I don't want to get up. I'm asleep. So just... I know you're upset, but just say what it is. What is it?" And she had have gone, "Please. If you... If you love me, just this one time, just get up. It's an awful thing and I can't be alone. I need someone to comfort me and share. Just...please. Get up." And he'd have gone, "Look, I was out late last night. I've got work at 7...tomorrow. This is my... This is my one day for sleeping in. I don't want to get up till about half past 11, to be honest. Even then I'm not gonna get dressed, I'm just gonna be in my pants and stuff, just sitting around. I kind of... I don't know what you... If you just say what it is... What is it?" She'd have gone, "Princess Diana, Lady Di, has...she...has been killed." He'd have gone, "No! Not the Queen of Hearts! The Rose of England... And Scotland and Wales and bits of Ireland, no! How did it... There's no God! How did it... Why? How did it happen?" She'd have gone, It was in a car crash in Paris last night. They don't know the exact details yet. But she's dead." So presumably at that point, he'd have got up, got out of bed, tried to get dressed, get some kind of grip on his emotions and his feelings. Calm down his grief. And then he'd have said... I'd better go out and get a life-size inflatable model of ET. You know... For the gates of her home." And his wife would have said, "Yes. But you'd better hurry cos there'll be a rush on those now. We don't wanna be the only people not putting one there." I was talking about this on stage in Croydon and a bloke shouted out, "I was there! And I saw that! And it wasn't a life-size inflatable model of ET, it was a life-size inflatable model of Alf!"
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