From Heckler SprayJuly 2nd, 2007 at 11:30 by Stuart Heritage
Like many people, we spent most of yesterday hiding under our desk terrified that someone would drive a flaming jeep through our first-floor window, but apparently some other people went and saw a concert about Princess Diana instead.
Yesterday 60,000 middle-aged women put down their Princess Diana As An Angel tapestries and went along to Wembley Stadium to celebrate Princess Diana's 46th birthday at the Princess Diana Tribute concert. Acts from around the world, like Duran Duran, Elton John, that boy that won the Joseph programme and Orson, came together to a) remember all that Princess Diana achieved in her life, b) give their album sales a nice little boost and c) try as hard as humanly possible not to make any jokes about bulimia or car crashes, lest they incur the wrath of 60,000 really ticked off Daily Express readers.
Big day, yesterday. Not only did smoking indoors get banned in the UK, but the top half of the country remained under four feet of water and the angry men decided to start blowing cars up in busy places again. Despite all of this, though, the really big news from yesterday was that Bryan Ferry sang Let's Stick Together because it was Princess Diana's birthday.
On what would have been her 46th birthday, Princes William and Harry temporarily stopped toying with girls' emotions and toying with girls' breasts to gather together some of the biggest best most available acts in the world to celebrate their mother's life. In a summer that looks likely to be dominated by a flood of Princess Diana books, Princess Diana memorials and TV shows about Princess Diana's smashed-up face, the Princess Diana Tribute Concert was always going to be the high-point. Almost immediately sold-out - even though Rod Stewart was on the bill - the Princess Diana concert painted a saintly picture of the woman who could one minute hold hands with a leper and the next go and have sex with that married rugby player. Reuters reports that the concert was a success, both for Princess Diana's sons and weirdos with a little bit too much time on their hands:
The princes, who danced and joined a Mexican wave during the concert, organised the event to mark the 10th anniversary of their mother's death and celebrate her charity work, which they felt had been forgotten amid negative press. "For us this has been the most perfect way of remembering her and this is how she would want to be remembered," William, 25, said at the end of the gig, to loud applause. I camped out in London for her funeral, so I really wanted to be here today. She was a caring person who always thought of others," said Julie Rocks.
That's not to say that the Princess Diana concert - broadcast globally to an audience of 500 million - wasn't full of shocks, however, most notably the number of absentees. For example, even though she's been genetically predetermined to sing sad songs at charity concerts, Annie Lennox was nowhere to be seen. Nor were those with the fondest memories of Princess Diana; like George Michael, who thought Princess Diana wanted to shag him and David Hasselhoff, who thought Princess Diana wanted to shag him.
Despite all this, though, Prince William was right - the Princess Diana concert was the perfect way to remember Diana, and when it comes to the tenth anniversary of the death of one of our loved ones, we want to mark it by hiring Tom Jones and Joss Stone to shout "WoahaaahhhhooooOHAHHOOAHHH!" at each other for ten minutes in front of thousands of non-plussed middle-aged women who haven't been to a concert since 1972 too. And we'd also like to commission a series of short films that are meant to highlight all the good work that the deceased accomplished in their lifetime but end up so closely resembling Children In Need charity appeals that everyone watching them just feels weirdly guilty about everything instead.
So hooray for the Princess Diana Tribute Concert. When we look back on the period of 2007 directly between Glastonbury and Live Earth, Princess Diana will be the first thing we think of. Well, the second thing after all the horrifying attempts at terrorist attacks. And the flooding. And Wimbledon. And the smoking ban. And Die Hard 4 coming out. OK, the Princess Diana concert will be the sixth thing we think about. So long as we don't think about the Russian federal subject of Koryakia merging into the Kamchata Oblast too much, obviously.
