Post by sparklingblue on Jan 14, 2004 16:03:46 GMT -5
Di theories ignore tragic normality
The Age
By Mikey Robins
This Life
January 14, 2004
If you have a few hours to kill over the next few weeks might I suggest you type the words "Princess Di" and "Conspiracy" into a search engine.
My God there are some fruit bats out there. That's what I did yesterday when I was researching this column. I started at five and was still trawling the seas of unstable paranoia at two in the morning.
Now, I've always believed that any obsession with the royals is the first sign of lunacy, the other two being hoarding bodily fluids and fashioning clothes out of tinfoil.
But once you throw Diana into the mix it seems to me that the busiest people in the world's mental institutions are not nurses but webpage designers.
And it's all gone ballistic since this week's revelation that Di believed that the person plotting to kill her in a staged car accident was none other than her own ex-husband and our future King, Prince Charles.
This is, of course, the most prevalent theory out there in cyber land. That Charles, a man of debatable intellectual ability, organised such a thing is, to me, beyond belief.
Let's face it, his main activities seem to be harassing architects, killing defenceless wildlife and making obscene mobile phone calls.
This is a man in the words of a great old Aussie saying, "couldn't organise a choko race in an outback shithouse", let alone a complicated murder plot.
Although he did apparently have his father (another towering intellect) to help him out; one website even has Phil remotely controlling the speeding the Mercedes from the comfort of his London office.
Obviously they had help - you see there is compelling evidence that MI5 or MI6 was involved. Apparently they had a pre-existing plan to kill Slobodan Milosovic in exactly the same way Diana died.
And as far as the internet conspiracy freaks are concerned that's as good as a smoking gun. Just be thankful she wasn't killed by an exploding cigar or the CIA would have been fingered as well.
One of the hardest things for some folk to accept is that extraordinary people can have such ordinary deaths - ask the guy who cleaned Elvis's bathroom.
Speaking of spy agencies, quite a few sites blame Mossad; in fact this was the first conspiracy claim made by a world leader. Well, when I say "by a world leader" I mean by Muammar Gaddafi, a man who almost single-handedly created the occupation "crazed Middle East leader", so enough said there.
The rest of the sites I came across apportioned the blame amongst the usual suspects. The Pope got a go - oh yeah, I can hear the movie trailer now: "By day he's the pontiff, by night he's a hard-loving assassin. Pierce Brosnan is his Holiness in Vengeance of the Fisherman II. This time it's papal!"
Of course, the Masons copped the blame from some folk. I can never make up my mind whether the Masons are a secret organisation that rules the world from Atlantis or just a nice bunch of middle-aged men who raise money for charity and have a thing for leather aprons.
But my favourite loony site was one that claimed that Mohamed Al Fayed was being punished by having his son murdered (Di was just an added bonus) by a cult of super-powerful Egyptian vampires. Apparently he was once one of them but had secretly sold out to the British establishment, something that as we all know angers Egyptian vampires no end.
Not all sites deal with conspiracies about Di's death. A fair few of them are concerned with her current living conditions and the conspiracy woven around keeping her alive and in seclusion.
According to most of them, she lives on either a private island "not shown on any map" or deep in the heart of Africa, where she and Dodi spend their days in paparazzi-free bliss, in between helping out at whichever children's hospital is nearest on the hidden island/African hideaway.
Although some sites maintain that she still travels the world and in the last six months has been spotted in a Dublin cafe, a Japanese sushi bar (good to see she's eating again), New York's Central Park and a car dealership in Wagga Wagga.
It's sort of sad that, like Elvis, some people adore her so much that they have to create these massive fictions to keep her alive. Or they need to invent these conspiracy theories over what was a tragic yet everyday occurrence, a fatal car accident.
Sure, the French authorities may have bungled the investigation, and sure there were elements of the British establishment that hated her guts. But seriously, do you think she would have been murdered over a relationship that was barely six weeks old.
One of the hardest things for some folk to accept is that extraordinary people can have such ordinary deaths - ask the guy who cleaned Elvis's bathroom.
The Age
By Mikey Robins
This Life
January 14, 2004
If you have a few hours to kill over the next few weeks might I suggest you type the words "Princess Di" and "Conspiracy" into a search engine.
My God there are some fruit bats out there. That's what I did yesterday when I was researching this column. I started at five and was still trawling the seas of unstable paranoia at two in the morning.
Now, I've always believed that any obsession with the royals is the first sign of lunacy, the other two being hoarding bodily fluids and fashioning clothes out of tinfoil.
But once you throw Diana into the mix it seems to me that the busiest people in the world's mental institutions are not nurses but webpage designers.
And it's all gone ballistic since this week's revelation that Di believed that the person plotting to kill her in a staged car accident was none other than her own ex-husband and our future King, Prince Charles.
This is, of course, the most prevalent theory out there in cyber land. That Charles, a man of debatable intellectual ability, organised such a thing is, to me, beyond belief.
Let's face it, his main activities seem to be harassing architects, killing defenceless wildlife and making obscene mobile phone calls.
This is a man in the words of a great old Aussie saying, "couldn't organise a choko race in an outback shithouse", let alone a complicated murder plot.
Although he did apparently have his father (another towering intellect) to help him out; one website even has Phil remotely controlling the speeding the Mercedes from the comfort of his London office.
Obviously they had help - you see there is compelling evidence that MI5 or MI6 was involved. Apparently they had a pre-existing plan to kill Slobodan Milosovic in exactly the same way Diana died.
And as far as the internet conspiracy freaks are concerned that's as good as a smoking gun. Just be thankful she wasn't killed by an exploding cigar or the CIA would have been fingered as well.
One of the hardest things for some folk to accept is that extraordinary people can have such ordinary deaths - ask the guy who cleaned Elvis's bathroom.
Speaking of spy agencies, quite a few sites blame Mossad; in fact this was the first conspiracy claim made by a world leader. Well, when I say "by a world leader" I mean by Muammar Gaddafi, a man who almost single-handedly created the occupation "crazed Middle East leader", so enough said there.
The rest of the sites I came across apportioned the blame amongst the usual suspects. The Pope got a go - oh yeah, I can hear the movie trailer now: "By day he's the pontiff, by night he's a hard-loving assassin. Pierce Brosnan is his Holiness in Vengeance of the Fisherman II. This time it's papal!"
Of course, the Masons copped the blame from some folk. I can never make up my mind whether the Masons are a secret organisation that rules the world from Atlantis or just a nice bunch of middle-aged men who raise money for charity and have a thing for leather aprons.
But my favourite loony site was one that claimed that Mohamed Al Fayed was being punished by having his son murdered (Di was just an added bonus) by a cult of super-powerful Egyptian vampires. Apparently he was once one of them but had secretly sold out to the British establishment, something that as we all know angers Egyptian vampires no end.
Not all sites deal with conspiracies about Di's death. A fair few of them are concerned with her current living conditions and the conspiracy woven around keeping her alive and in seclusion.
According to most of them, she lives on either a private island "not shown on any map" or deep in the heart of Africa, where she and Dodi spend their days in paparazzi-free bliss, in between helping out at whichever children's hospital is nearest on the hidden island/African hideaway.
Although some sites maintain that she still travels the world and in the last six months has been spotted in a Dublin cafe, a Japanese sushi bar (good to see she's eating again), New York's Central Park and a car dealership in Wagga Wagga.
It's sort of sad that, like Elvis, some people adore her so much that they have to create these massive fictions to keep her alive. Or they need to invent these conspiracy theories over what was a tragic yet everyday occurrence, a fatal car accident.
Sure, the French authorities may have bungled the investigation, and sure there were elements of the British establishment that hated her guts. But seriously, do you think she would have been murdered over a relationship that was barely six weeks old.
One of the hardest things for some folk to accept is that extraordinary people can have such ordinary deaths - ask the guy who cleaned Elvis's bathroom.
