The last occasion I can recall that raised all this absurd and exaggerated public grief was the death of the Princess of Wales.
The problem with this self-feeding "grief frenzy" is that it gives an opportunity to many public figures to spout rubbish. After Princess Diana died we had the smarmy performance of prime minister Tony Blair; this time the one that (unfortunately) caught my ear was Jackson chum and black activist Al Sharpton. Mr Sharpton observed in his wisdom that Jackson had, long before Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama brought black people to the fore (he used the ludicrous phrase "person of colour").
Mr Sharpton should read a book or two.
Admittedly, Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were not renowned for their dancing but I think that I would be correct in saying that they were moderately successful (world stars in fact) and they were around long before any of the Jacksons were a twinkle in the eye of their allegedly rather unpleasant father.
Finally I should add that I consider that Michael Jackson was very talented and an excellent entertainer although he did nothing for me - not my sort of thing. There was however one song which I always enjoyed - largely I have to say because of the contributions of Steve Lukather and Eddie van Halen. Sorry, embedding is forbidden:
BEAT IT
A death is indeed a death, but right now I would prefer to think about Neda.
Until the next time.
* Thanks to Private Eye