Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Daft celebrity mourners have made 2016 the year of the ‘Tearleader’

Despite my ‘difficult’ reputation, I am a cheery cove in real life, all the more so as I get older. But in true Dorian Grey style, I only stay this way by letting my intolerant side rule the roost on Facebook. Every morning my hot little hands positively itch to unfollow, defriend and block: a day which passes without binning a few dim bulbs is a day wasted.

I’ve had an especially good run of it this year, as two things in particular have acted as cracking prompts for my ‘negging‘ narrative. One has been the showing of bad attitude on the part of many Remain-supporting mates. I don’t expect everyone to be a bold Brexiteer like me, but I do expect people to be good losers. The other is a phenomenon which my husband, with admirable masculine brusqueness, calls ‘tearleading’; that of large groups of people getting together to competitively mourn dead celebrities.

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