ON THE "two handshakes" principle, I am just that distance from a band due to feature on John Peel's show after he got home from Peru.

Peel's sudden death, during his working holiday in South America, brought the sort of reaction which makes it a real pity people aren't around to read their own obituaries - except on the odd occasion when we newspapers get it wrong and reports of their deaths are, as Mark Twain said of his own premature obituary, "much exaggerated".

Many of the tributes came from well-known pop - for want of a better catch-all term - musicians who, in the depths of their early obscurity, were given air time on Peel's radio shows and, as a fairly direct result, hit the hits.

Sad, then, for Bloc Party (one of whose members is going out with a friend of the offspring) that they won't now be recorded for Peel's opinion though, as they've been described in a national paper as "next year's Franz Ferdinand", I may yet be two handshakes from the top ten.

Franz Ferdinand? Forget archdukes, we're talking art rock bands here. Ask a passing teen.

Meanwhile, this week, Peel's funeral was due to take place in St Edmundsbury Cathedral, open to all who could squeeze in. And squeeze in I'm sure they did, a contrasting congregation from celebs and top broadcasting brass to his fans from Radios 1 and 4. I'm sure, too, that they would feel able to give open expression to any grief they felt.

Peel, you see, was a public figure so open grief was permissible.

If those mourners had lost someone close to them, but not in the public eye, through a tragic accident or sudden death, they would be expected to be in the process of "coming to terms" with their loss.

Sometimes I think I will just scream if I see the phrase "come to terms" used once more in relation to those most closely affected by such bereavements.

It always seems as if the text hidden behind the phrase is: "OK, it's happened; deal with it and get back to normal life ASAP."

The stiff upper lip may now be sneered at but, for heaven's sake, don't let the lower one tremble. The Victorians' strict rules for mourning periods may seem too prescriptive today but at least they left people in reasonable peace to grieve in their own way. Grief was not a problem which might embarrass others.

This weekend, there will be men and women in their eighties and nineties bowing their heads as they remember husbands and wives, brothers and sisters or friends, lost in battle or blitz.

Since 1945 they have carried on with their lives, worked, played, grown older, maybe brought up children on their own. Whenever a stray thought reminds them of the day the telegram came or the bomb fell, for all we know it still chokes them.

Some may never "come to terms" with it, in the sense of putting it firmly into the past now left behind, as the phrase implies. They cope, which is quite different.

For those bereaved by subsequent, and especially recent, conflicts, emotional wounds can still be raw and open. If they can bear to go to a Remembrance service on Sunday, it will be an act of discipline and bravery which should be acknowledged by not turning the cameras on grief with which they have not, and may never, "come to terms".