“Where was I when I heard the ghastly news? Who cares?” So says presenter Christopher Hitchens of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. On 31st August 1997 Britain appeared to be a nation united in grief at the death of the most famous woman in the world. But for her lavish funeral, just one week later, 41 per cent of the nation’s television sets were switched off; their owners apparently disgusted by the sentimentality and hysteria of the previous week. Hitchens goes in search of these other Britains who risked disapproval by seeming to be unmoved by the death of a woman they did not know. Sceptical, witty and observant, Hitchens also ticks off the paparazzi, citing the extraordinary hypocrisy of columnists who criticised her one week and wrote gushingly of her the next.
