When the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs died, they were never buried alone. Oh no. A few wives went in there with him, all his pets, favourite horse, a camel, mother-in-law, which is why they needed really big crypts. Because the mother-in-law was immense. (I think we need to re-kindle the whole ‘mother-in-law’ joke thing for these more sensitive, aware, caring times. And because ‘mothers-in-law’ don’t have a union, a support group, legal protection as a ‘minority’ or even a ‘diversity’, we are free to attack them mercilessly. Whilst we still can.)

The message was one of grief. The wives simply ‘couldn’t go on without him!’ due to their grief and sorrow. Life meant nothing without the guv’nor. Whereas the reality was that she’d been shagging her way through the armed guard for a decade and was looking forward to the new cadets.

Other civilisations adopted penance and suffering as ways of expressing their sorrow of death. As if the only way to deal with the death of a loved one is to make yourself suffer. Which, when you think about it, is stupid. You are suffering. Grief hurts. There’s no need for blood to feel pain. And would your dead loved-one want you to suffer more? A Pharaoh might but not a normal, nice person. In some societies they beat chests and wail as they follow the coffin to its final parking space.

But generally, in Western society, we no longer adopt such a coping strategy. And yet, the need to suffer and being seen to suffer is a lingering cultural expectation. Thus, we must all suffer, just a little, to mourn the passing of our Queen. So they’ve cancelled the fucking football this weekend. Yeah, let’s add more tragedy. Good idea. But God moves in mysterious ways, so arranging it so that Spurs visit to Manchester City is postponed might not be seen by all as a ‘bad thing’.

I saw this photo in the paper yesterday and wanted to ‘share’. It was the Queen visiting Pakistan in 1961. In an open-topped Cadillac. 2 years later Kennedy was shot dead riding through Dallas in a similar mode and for some reason, that method of nobility parading around simply stopped.

Happy mourning

A xxxx