Farewells

Jade Goody the 27-year-old chavette who died following a public battle with cervical cancer. A reality show star who showed the world the common face of the UK.

Stephen Fry has compared Jade Goody to the late Princess Diana by saying she was 'a kind of Princess Di from the wrong side of the tracks.'

Gordon Brown has said how saddened he was and anyone else who wanted TV face time also turned up to look sad.

This by Jan Moir:

Somehow, luckless Jade Goody, born in a time of plenty, passed through the English education system without touching the sides. She became an adult who didn't know what asparagus was, wondered if the pattern on a peacock's tail feathers was its real eyes, who believed Rio de Janeiro to be a person, that East Anglia was abroad and wasn't quite sure if Americans spoke English.

This is not Jade's shame. It belongs to all of us. Yet what a terrible indictment on our state education system that the last wish of this woman was to provide a private education for her children. To 'give them the chances I never had', is how she put it. So maybe Goody herself did collaborate on three books - each a volume of autobiography - but she never showed any sign of having read a book.

Or had a teacher who inspired her. Or met anyone who encouraged an interest in anything other than herself. The miracle is that, despite this unprepossessing start, she somehow managed to make something of herself. To make herself matter beyond the confines of her own nearest and dearest. It is sad that any young woman has died, leaving two motherless sons behind. For those bewildered boys, only time will tell what the real emotional price will be for this ghoulish media circus.

The family has pleaded for privacy now, a laughable conceit in the circumstances. Yet Goody's decision to sell herself in this manner was never going to be a plea for respect or a struggle for sainthood. Even if, in death, she will undoubtedly be redeemed. Indeed, the sanctification process is already under way as the uglier parts of her character - her ignorance, racism, bad temper and catastrophic taste in men - are airbrushed away.

It is not her fault that she came to represent everything that is ugly and asinine about reality television. But a saint she ain't.

The complete opposite

Natasha Richardson who died during a freak skiing fall had her private funeral service. The emotional ceremony took place in upstate New York, near to where Richardson shared a home with her husband Liam Neeson and their two children.

Unlike the Jade Goody media circus which was her life and death Richardson was given a dignified send off with the media tolerated to a bit as well what can you do? You wave the odd time and pose and that is it.