So I wrote about Prince Philip, as was my divine duty, my right, my moral obligation, my… whatever. He died, I said ‘goodbye’, not that I’d ever said ‘hello’ but that’s the nature of obituaries. You don’t have to know everyone who dies, just to know OF them is sufficient. To make you a ‘mourner’. Which is why they have books and online portals for such ‘mourners’ to offer condolences and tell everyone how much they’re going to miss… whoever. Then you lay some flowers, with 22,846 other bunches, against a wall in Westminster and go back to wait for the pubs to open. Tomorrow! Unless someone else dies in the meantime.

I was not alone in writing kind words about our most Edinburgh of Dukes. No. A few newspapers printed the odd word and even a picture or two. Or three. Thousand. Or more. Endless photos, stories, tales of his youth, his navy days, his marriage, his (alleged!!!) affairs, his children, his grandchildren… fucking everyone and everything he ever did. And in 99+ years, that was quite a lot. The BBC also went into ‘famous death’ mode and extended their news bulletins, whipped their ‘specials’ out of the pending file and went into full Philip meltdown for the next 53 hours, suspending all other broadcasting.

This may be because the Philip archive, both in print and film, has been growing for about 73 years since anyone first heard of him, and had reached the point where storage had become a problem, so it just came bursting out in an explosion. Especially as, since he came out of hospital a few weeks ago, editors have been sitting with their fingers poised of the red ‘PRINT!/AIR!’ buttons.

So now the inevitable. ‘There’s too much stuff about Philip’. ‘He weren’t that great’. ‘Only a bloody consort’. ‘I’m bored with Princely rubbish’.

So for all those moaners, tomorrow the newspapers and tv stations are having a special day. A no-Philip, coronavirus and Brexit special! To let them know exactly what they’ve been missing whilst we’ve been crying over big Phil. Maybe just a few pages about the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Something we’ve all really missed in the last 20 years. I’d quite forgotten how much I love a burning bus.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx