Diana: My First and Last Words

No, it's not that I intend that the name of the late Princess of Wales' name, the goddess of the hunt, be my final utterance before I join her in Heaven. It's that I've never discussed the subject before seeing today's story

(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/07/international/i083611D38.DTL)

and don't intend to do so again, unless it becomes a completely different story somehow. It's basically a one-shot item, the interest on the side at best. The judgment is that there were unlawful deaths to Dodi and Diana, with their driver and the chasing paparazzi culpable. There are theoretical remedies but no practical ones with the driver dead and some of the motorcycle-riding harpies already punished to the full extent of the law, and thus no doubt already penniless.

I do think that today's story, while it changes little in the real world, puts the case on a clear legal path, one appropriate for the actual intents, actions, and reactions of the incident. Maybe Mohammed Fayed's desire to litigate can thus be effectively focused in the proper arena, against the correct defendants.

Diana's death shocked me much more than a normal celebrity event; exactly one week before I'd been staying at the Intercontinental Hotel, right at the place the driver and attendant paparazzi mob would have turned into the tunnel where fate intervened. I could imagine the whole high-speed circus parade--Fellini-esque, in my mind--as it might have been.

I see The Legend of Dodi and Diana as a clear warning to All Who Would Become Famous how badly the game of fame can end up for The Player.