A VERY PARTICULAR FUNERAL

The last rites for Prince Philip in Saint Georges chapel were grand. The austerity and restraint made the pomp approachable.

The image of the dispassionate Queen, impenetrable in her chosen and obligatory distance, will have staying-power for the ages.

I wonder if she realized that her very personal grief was appropriated as soon as it appeared by the thousands who lost loved ones in the pandemic and were deprived of their own heartsick goodbye.

Willingly or not, her Majesty assumed both her personal sorrow and the bereavement the world ended up in.

Some of the clueless attendants yesterday ignored that they also took part in what is so much larger and depressing:  the obsequities of too large a part of humanity.