Princess Margaret dies
February 9, 2002 11:32 AM   Subscribe

Princess Margaret dies It was only a matter of time. The palace have announced a private funeral for family and a few friends.
posted by feelinglistless (23 comments total)
 
Royalty...what a concept. At least she seemed (to me, a devoted non-Royal watcher) to be a class act, unlike many younger members of the Royal family. Generation gap - what another concept.
posted by davidmsc at 12:01 PM on February 9, 2002


"It was only a matter of time" ... true for all of us, don't you think?

I always felt a bit sorry for Princess Margaret. She gave up the man that she really loved, because he was a divorcé, in a pretty full-on example of Noblesse Oblige. Then she ended up getting divorced herself anyway. She cut a rather tragic figure, young, beautiful, and unlucky in love due only to her sense of personal responsibility. (Her uncle, after all, gave up the throne to marry the divorcée he was in love with).
posted by different at 1:05 PM on February 9, 2002


Britney Spears will die. It's only a matter of time...
posted by jamsterdam at 1:23 PM on February 9, 2002


I was going to post this but decided I wouldn't be able to contain my cynicism.

As lazy, greedy, leeches go, she wasn't/isn't the worst but she certainly made the most of her position - just as well she got those fags and booze free by royal appointment. Unfortunately for us citizens Margaret is a minor figure so we don't get a holiday. Not to worry though, we won't have to wait long, just one tiny fishbone should do it.
posted by niceness at 1:38 PM on February 9, 2002


I'm a long-time critic of the Royals, but sheesh, niceness...that's positively ghoulish!
posted by davidmsc at 2:00 PM on February 9, 2002


Not ghoulish enough. Congratulations "subjects" of the crown, you have one less welfare mother to support.
posted by mlinksva at 2:08 PM on February 9, 2002


I love metafilter.


seriously. i do.
posted by jpoulos at 2:47 PM on February 9, 2002


Well said niceness.I cant believe the claptrap the bbc has been spouting all day,we deserve a holiday for that alone.Imagine what it will be like when the nazi sympathiser,the dear old queen mom goes?
posted by Fat Buddha at 2:58 PM on February 9, 2002


If ever I was sorry I posted something. I'm not a huge royalist but can we have some respect?
posted by feelinglistless at 4:02 PM on February 9, 2002


Well twice now I have found myself in broad sympathy with Skallas.
What exactly should we have respect for.All day we have been subject to royalists emoting,but not one has found anything good to say about her,all positive comments have been highly codified.
Respect would be due to any barmy old bag who drunk and smoked herself into an early grave if they had gone with good grace and dignity.By all accounts she lacked both traits.
As an aside how did she manage to scald both feet in the bath????.
Surely you put one in and say "fuck me thats hot" I'll put some cold in.
Not the beautiful and intelligent woman we are all mourning. She puts one foot in,gives herself third degree burns and says I like that warm tingly feeling,lets balance it up.
posted by Fat Buddha at 4:39 PM on February 9, 2002


She gave up the man that she really loved, because he was a divorcé, in a pretty full-on example of Noblesse Oblige.

noblesse o·blige n. - Benevolent, honorable behavior considered to be the responsibility of persons of high birth or rank.

Well, no one knows her motivations. It could be argued that she liked the sweet "Royalty" gig more than she loved the guy in question. Certainly, her abdication would not have undone the monarchy.

While I certainly don't think that her death is any more tragic than any other little old lady's, I don't see why some folks in this thread seem so happy about it. Don't like the Monarchy? Fine, fire their inbred asses. Abolish the whole stupid concept. But dancing on an individual's grave just because she was born into an institution that you dissaprove of seems in poor taste.
posted by Optamystic at 4:51 PM on February 9, 2002


What exactly should we have respect for?

Only one thing - just that she was a person, someone who was alive once and now is dead.

Fair enough to give comments on why you didn't like her, but I do think that a tone of glee is overdoing it a bit.

IMHO people tend to be a bit jealous of royals - all that money, privilege and grovelling flunkies - which is why this kind of aggression tends to come out.

I'm not a monarchist by any means - hell, I'm Australian, the bunch of them are (at best) completely irrelevant to my life - but hey, she was a human being.

BTW the Queen Mum a Nazu sympathiser? Did I miss something?
posted by different at 4:55 PM on February 9, 2002


"Princess Margaret, whose reported "Irish, they're pigs" remark in Chicago created a furor on her last visit to the United States in 1979.
~Ohhhh, I will miss her sooo much~ *cries*
posted by thirteen at 5:05 PM on February 9, 2002


different:

It's probably a reference to her backing of Lord Halifax for Prime Minister rather than Churchill. Apparently she later changed her stance.

Of course, not being a Royal Subject, I could be wrong.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:12 PM on February 9, 2002


yes different you clearly missed something,why do you think you never see any interviews with her.Doyou think she has been mute the last 50 years.The whole sorry bus of them are hideous.How much money and private education does it take to get an o level in art????
Glee??I haventy noticed any ,any death is sad and diminishes us all.
A little old lady died in Rotherham today,she had devoted herself to her husband and kids and died in squalour.
No-one noticed.She had no tan.
posted by Fat Buddha at 5:22 PM on February 9, 2002


I refer the right honourable gentleman to the remarks I made some moments ago...
posted by feelinglistless at 5:57 PM on February 9, 2002


"noblesse o·blige -n" ya, since im a Bowes by birth, ahahahaand if this were the 18th century, id have one of my thief-takers come pay all the anti-royalists a visit...ya, jimmy the crowbar (jemmy the jimmy) so, so...I'll take a lotto ticket for my place in line. (how much do you think i could get for the Cullinan I...that oil rig corpra-net-province place in the north Sea? ,a few hundred T-80's.)
posted by clavdivs at 6:38 PM on February 9, 2002


As ever... it's not what you do, it's what you are.

I'm not a great royalist (tbh I couldn't care less whether we have a monarchy or not... whereas my girlfriend is completely anti-monachy), but I feel sympathy for her family, because everyone knows what it's like to lose someone. But at the same time it can hardly be said she didn't have a good life while she could.

I really don't think such a great fuss should be made of it, media-wise.
posted by robzster1977 at 10:17 PM on February 9, 2002


As an aside how did she manage to scald both feet in the bath????

She was partially blind and semi-paralysed following a series of strokes. If she were seated in a wheelchair, on a bath seat or on the edge of a tub, and swung both legs (or manually moved both legs) at once and put them into the water, then both feet and ankles would've been affected. That happened to my aunt, who was paralysed and had diabetes which affected sensation in her feet -- the resulting infection hastened her death.

Respect would be due to any barmy old bag who drunk and smoked herself into an early grave if they had gone with good grace and dignity.

What evidence is there that she lacked good grace or dignity -- a highly subjective opinion, in any case? What is the Fat Buddha standard of conduct for someone who is wheelchair-bound, partly blind, missing a lung and almost completely debilitated?
posted by Dreama at 10:38 PM on February 9, 2002


I despise the monarchy as much as the next republican, but I think respect goes out to Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, for his remarks:

"We all suffer when we lose a close relative and I offer the Queen, the Queen Mother and the Royal Family my greatest sympathy."

He's the only person I've heard who hasn't praised her, yet has still been sensitive and respectful to her family. Nice one, Chuck.
posted by malross at 12:40 AM on February 10, 2002


Dreama, the bath incident preceded her illness.The evidence I have for her lack of good grace and dignity is virtuallY everything that was written in the media prior to yesterday.She hasn't become a better person because she is dead.
What a wonderful family
posted by Fat Buddha at 2:52 AM on February 10, 2002


Just about anything beats President Blair or Thatcher.
posted by PaddyJames at 2:57 AM on February 10, 2002


The Observer: "Allowed to flower, perhaps her life would have been very much happier."
posted by Carol Anne at 6:10 AM on February 10, 2002


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