Prince

Prince was not my generation, although I was aware that a lot of people around me admired him, as they did Michael Jackson, the Clash and a whole lot of artists that came after my eras, the 60s and 70s. I had no idea what a brilliant musician Prince was. Yesterday I heard him playing the guitar and was amazed at his skill and his feeling for the music. There's no doubt he'll be missed as a composer, producer, arranger and singer of popular music. 

That's the good bit. 

The bad bit is the reaction of the media to his death. This is a current headline on the BBC news website - and it's typical of the websites of many newspapers and TV stations:

Prince death: 'No sign' it was suicide, sheriff says.

It's hard to know where to start with this. There have been snarky comments lately about the deaths of  several famous people. It's been claimed Ronnie Corbett, Terry Wogan and Victoria Wood kept their final illnesses 'secret.' Not wanting people to know how ill you are is not being secretive. It's being private. Why should the public know someone famous is dying of cancer? It's their personal tragedy and they have better things to worry about - like preparing their families and friends for their imminent death - rather than worrying how the public will react. There seems to be a view that we somehow own famous people. That we buy their lives. We need to get this right: we pay for their skills and enjoy them, but they remain sons and daughters, partners and parents. And the public have no share in that. 

Then there's the suicide question. It's no one's business how Prince died. Surely there is no scandal or stigma attached to taking your own life - for whatever reason - nowadays? Does it make anyone feel any different about him knowing that Robin Williams took his own life? It makes me sad that he felt he couldn't go on - or maybe felt he had no future and no one to turn to for help - but in the end it was his choice to make and we need to respect that. 

All this started with Diana. Was she Princess Diana or Diana Princess of Wales? I don't know any more. She's just referred to as Diana. Denied a personality or a place in real life. Just an icon. The Daily Express seems to have an article about her every other day, even now, almost 20 years after her death. In my opinion, it's a measure of how sick Diana was that she left her sons in the UK and swanned off with her boyfriend all over Europe, with an entourage of reporters after her. That's when we got the idea that we, the public, had the right to know everything about famous people. 

There's an expression we use when we tell people off about this kind of obsessive following of celebrities: Get a life.