I watched a bit of the Thatcher funeral this morning. The pageantry involved with this kind of (not quite, though pretty much) state funeral is in danger of making a solemn occasion rather funny. People dressed up in ludicrous uniforms, made to shuffle or march in strange and uncomfortable ways, sometimes with hats on, but sometimes (tradition dictates) bare-headed. It's so over blown that it almost begins to look sarcastic.
I know that when I die many people will be clamouring for me to get a state funeral, but I'd rather just be put in a black bin bag and thrown into a skip (illegally overnight in someone else's skip) and then have the 10 million pounds spent on a massive country-wide game of Laser Quest (last person standing wins whatever money hasn't been spent).
I was glad that the proposed funeral protests came to (almost) nothing. That was all a bit Westboro Baptist Church for me. As discussed before someone's funeral is not the time for you to let them know that you didn't like them. You can boo as hard as you like, Lady Thatcher's ears no longer work.
Be as critical and angry as you like, but a funeral is not the time or the place to make a fuss. And anyway you can just go on Twitter and make sarcastic remarks and that's fine. If anyone is checking their mobile phone during the service then they are not proper mourners anyway.
There were a few boos for the coffin apparently, but I also saw people applauding. Which seems just as bad as booing to be honest, both in its inappropriateness and its potential double meaning. Are you clapping to mark the achievements of her life or because you think it's correct that she's about to be chucked into a hole. Applause is something for the end of a play or a show, not for the end of a life. But maybe these applauding people were actually making a clever satirical point, implying that they thought all of Thatcher's life had been nothing but an artifice, a theatrical performance and that in death her story was being fictionalised and rewritten. Good point, people, but again not the time to make it.
Of course booing could equally have many meanings. Were the people booing upset with God or the figure of death or the fragility of the human existence and offering up a boo to the Heavens to show their displeasure with mortality? Were they booing because they just wanted Thatcher to be alive? Or did they think they were in a panto and that Thatcher was some kind of wicked step-mother figure? I think the last one might be closest, especially given that in a panto most people actually secretly like the villain and are booing because they know that is what is done, but there's a laugh and a bit of love in their booing. I think many of those booing Thatcher looked like they were protesting too much. They hated her, but they loved to hate her more. That's the only reason I can see to turn up to a funeral and boo it. They have lost more than the people who are properly mourning.
If those old Thatcher ears had somehow sprung to life I think she'd have have been cackling with joy, until she got her bearings and thought "Fuck, they're about to bury or incinerate me. Let me out! Let me out!"
I caught up on my podcasts. This week's Talking Cock podcast is
all about Willy Wonkaing, the history and urban myths surrounding masturbation. And there's a special Margaret Thatcher Funeral edition of
Me1 vs Me2 Snooker in which I attempt to discover who was right Thatcher or the IRA via the medium of self-playing snooker. It's good that this sporting podcast also has a political purpose behind it. So if you want to know which side of the argument was actually correct then tune in.
