As I watch the queues of people (in London) on my TV, stretching for miles, to catch a glimpse of a wooden box containing a dead body, and draped in a colourful flag, I shake my head in disbelief at the human condition.
It seems as if the more the TV News channels show us footage of these "ginormous" queues, the more people seem to want to join them, with no regard for how long they will stand in these queues.
People are coming from great distances, sometimes booking themselves into hotels overnight at considerable expense, sometimes standing in these queues overnight in the chilling cold, putting their own health at risk, and abandoning all thoughts of the welfare of themselves and their family.
Has the public gone collectively mad? Does nothing else in the world matter anymore to these people? Do they think that the Queen was their best friend? You would think that the royal system somehow cared for and looked after the public, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is that most royals can't abide the public and want as little to do with them as possible. Ideally, royalty would like to maintain their privileged lifestyles without ever mixing with the country's mankers. Think Prince Harry and Meghan and you get a glimpse of how royalty really feels about being royal. They would love to keep their wealth and privilege but have nothing to do with the work that the job entails. Preferably just live behind exclusive mansion doors, mixing only with their wealthy friends, and not having to put on a fake smile and shake the smelly hands of Joe Public.
Prince (now King) Charles's first words to Liz Truss after the Queen's death were "I've been dreading this day". Correct. But not just because his mother died, but because he now has to spend the rest of his life working and being told what he can and cannot do. Make no mistake, if Charles or William could do what Harry did, they would be first on board the plane to California.
But what about this collective public madness. What is it that makes people take leave of their senses, and imagine somehow that "paying their respects" matters a jot to anyone? The human condition is mentally flawed.
Time and again we see humans collectively carry out homage to certain events or people when they have no connection whatsoever to those events or people. Think of football fans that empty their pockets every weekend to watch 11 guys that don't know them from Adam, kick a ball filled with air round a football pitch for 90 minutes. Mistakenly they feel some allegiance to "their" team, as if (again) the football players are their best friends. They are not.
And I doubt very much these footballers would have anything whatsoever to do with their supporters if it wasn't their job to be nice to them.
The truth of the matter is that these allegiances that form between royalty and public, football teams and supporters, are there to maintain the wealth and privilege afforded to them from the wage packets of the poorer public. Money flows in an upwards direction.
Unfortunately this system of monetary flow from the public poorer mass to smaller elite groups is supported by a media system that maintains itself in much the same way. The media system is the lifeblood of these elite groups, encouraging, nae brain-washing, the public mass to sacrifice themselves for continuance of the "elite group" system.
It is the same system that leads thousands of young men to lay down their lives in wartime, that encourages young women to pursue careers and pour money into the economy rather than raise a family, that denies the public access to their state pension at age 65 on the basis we are all living longer (baloney), and convinces millions they should queue overnight in the freezing cold to walk past a wooden box with a dead body.
So easily brain-washed. So easily taken for fools.
So easily USED.
