July 1, 1961: birth of Lady Diana Frances Spencer, daughter of
some old soak with the hereditary title of eighth Earl Spencer.
February, 1979: former friends in her childhood, Lady Diana is reintroduced
to Prince Charles at a fund-raising sporting event in aid of people afflicted
with polo.
June, 1981: Buckingham Palace court aides leak to the world's media
the news that the soon-to-be-wed kindy-teaching Lady Diana is a virgin.
A total of 23 London men, aged 18 to 43, suddenly develop intense complexes
about their penis size that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
July 29, 1981: millions around the world watch the fairytale wedding
at St Paul's Cathedral of Diana to Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
Diana stumbles over Charles' Christian names, because she can't get out
of her mind the fact that his family's surname was once Sax-Coburg-Gotha.
Their Buckingham Palace balcony embrace, labelled by the media as "The
Kiss", gives off about as much heat as a torch battery.
August 30, 1981: a beaming Princess Diana hears the news that she
is pregnant with a daughter.
August 31, 1981: Buckingham Palace and senior Thatcher Government
officials also hear the news. Foetus aborted.
June 21, 1982 and September 15, 1984: Princess
Diana gives birth to the heir (Prince William) and spare (Prince Harry)
. Luckily, both sons inherit their mother's looks and ears, meaning that
later in life they won't have to turn sideways to get through doorways.
January 1985: a man raised to hide his emotions, having been tutored
in the Phil the Greek "wham bam thank you mam" school of lovemaking,
Prince Charles turns an increasingly deaf ear – not an easy thing for
him to do – to Princess Diana's increasingly strident demands that
all she ever wanted from him was a good nose job.
March 1986: an increasingly lonely Princess Diana begins to realise
her union is in trouble. Prince Charles, a keen gardener, shuns their marital
bed, preferring to stay outdoors for long hours fertilising his beloved
camillas.
April 17, 1989: a worldwide poll shows that 52.3 billion women would
die to change places with Diana because she's pretty and a princess. Bulimic
Princess Diana, meanwhile, is making herself puke all over that latest designer
gown and throwing herself down flights of stairs 23 times in a row. And
that's before breakfast.
June 15, 1992: Princess Diana's book, Diana: Her True Story, ghosted
by Andrew Morton, discloses that Prince Charles has been having a long-time
affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, who may be as ugly as sin but at least
she's hyphenated, depending on which news reports you read.
June 15, 1992 to about six months ago: the world's press run the
prettiest pictures they can find of Princess Diana and the horsiest photos
they can muster of poor old ageing Camilla, to emphasise the point: "Hey,
Dumbo, are you crazy or what!"
August 25, 1992: quality London tabloid, The Sun prints extracts
of a December, 1989, phone call between Diana and a man who calls her "Squidgy"
apparently after the sound a certain part of her anatomy makes during frenzied
lovemaking.
December 9, 1992: Prime Minister John Major announces to Parliament
that Diana and Charles are to separate and he's to get his upper lip fixed.
January 12, 1992: The Sun prints a transcript of a scorching December,
1989, phone conversation purported to be of Prince Charles admitting to
an iron deficiency which he hopes to redress by being Camilla's tampon replacement
as often as possible.
June 29, 1994: in a candid TV documentary, Prince Charles reveals
that he tried very, very hard to save his marriage and only resorted to
adultery when it was clear the marriage was, for all intents and purposes,
over by July 30, 1981.
October 3, 1994: Anna Pastermak's book, Princess in Love, reveals
that Diana had a long-term affair with the man who taught her to ride properly,
James Hewitt. Hewitt was nicknamed Howitzer by his artillery regiment mates
because of the 25 pounder he always kept primed and ready for action in
his trousers.
November 20, 1995: Princess Diana admits in a TV interview that she
had an affair with, and suffered intense hurt and quite a number of stitches
from, Hewitt.
September 1995: the wife of rugby union star – well, English
captain at least – Will Carling blows the whistle to end their scrappy
lovematch after reports the previous month linking Carling to Diana.
December 1995: a Mrs Betty Windsor of B. Palace writes to Prince
Charles urging that he tell Diana to naff off, permanent like.
February 28, 1996 (morning) : Diana reluctantly agrees to divorce
big ears.
February 28, 1996 (afternoon) : Diana realises suddenly that when
she is no longer a member of the royal family, she might actually have to
work for a living.
February 28, 1996 (evening) until just after midnight, August 31, 1997:
Princess "The Loon" Diana's love-hate relationship with the paparazzi
is always loveliest on the eve of any major news that might show Prince
Charles or the horsey woman in good light.
August 28, 1996: final decree of divorce.
August, 1996: Diana realises that as the world's most well-known
woman, she can add her name and vision to a number of charities and other
causes, making it easier to mask those weeks on end she spends on holidays,
snow skiing in Aspen or lounging around on millionaire's boats in secluded
tropical surroundings or in the Mediterranean, always in her carefully designed
topless swimsuit, where she gets an even suntan on her back, and on her
legs.
November, 1996: a world wide poll shows that 123 billion women would
now love to be Princess Diana. Seeing that Diana, a very wealthy women,
is reported to spend up to $200,000 a year on grooming and double that on
wardrobe and that she spends an inordinate amount of time on holidays, snow
skiing in Aspen or lounging around on millionaire's boats in secluded tropical
surroundings or in the Mediterranean, always in her carefully designed topless
swimsuit where she gets an even suntan on her back, and on her legs, you
can't really blame them for wanting to swap places.
April, 1997: touring the English midlands on her beloved "free
range eggs, they're not hurting anybody" campaign, Diana meets an out-of-work
Bristol butcher, Sam Lowands, 38. An astonished Diana, now 36, is overcome
by her feelings for the penniless Sam. She realises, sadly, that this is
the first time in her life that she's really, truly, ruly, been in love.
The paparazzi capture the lovers' most tender moments in a working class
pub, where Diana is seen tenderly kissing and sucking the remaining finger
on each of Sam's hands.
Right now as you're reading this: okay, so we made that last entry
up. Let's get back to reality – and July.
Early in July, 1997: Princess Diana selflessly risks her life in
Angola on her anti-landmine campaign, where she bravely walks along deadly
tracks that have only been declared safe by the passage of 25 armoured personnel
carriers and five thousand foot soldiers on hands and knees prodding the
path with bayonets.
Early August, 1997: after years of painful personal relationships,
Diana can't believe her luck when she falls in love with film producer Dodi
Al Fayed during a well-earned 10 day holiday on the Al Fayed family yacht
off St Tropez, France, in her carefully designed topless swimsuit, where
she gets an even suntan on her back, and on her legs. She had no idea Dodi's
father, Mohammed, was one of the world's richest men and owned her favourite
shop, Harrods. And it's every woman's dream – let alone a princess's
– to find a man with a good frock shop.
August 25, 1997: also very much in love, Dodi reluctantly agrees
to break off the engagements to his current fiancees and to stop seeing
his girlfriends and mistresses for the time being. The devoted couple talk
for the first time of a nice muslim marriage. Diana is unbelievably excited
because she knows she looks very, very good in muslim.
6pm, August 30, 1997: from Paris, Diana rings a journalist friend,
Richard Kay, in London, saying that she'd decided to retire from public
life around November when her current charitiy and good-cause commitments
cease. Her blossoming relationship with dear, dear Dodi will give her the
resources needed, without having to dip into her own lousy $100 million
nest egg, to pursue her own interests, such as snow skiing in Aspen or lounging
around on millionaire's boats in secluded tropical surroundings or in the
Mediterranean, always in her carefully designed topless swimsuit, where
she gets an even suntan on her back, and on her legs. In other words, her
charity work as the people's princess, Britain's unofficial ambassador to
the world's sick, poor, dying and maimed, can go take an almighty hike.
7pm-11pm, August 30, 1997: Princess Di and Dodi Al Fayed dine at
The Ritz, owned by Dodi's daddy. No bill is tendered.
Just before midnight, August 30, 1997: returning to their Paris penthouse,
Diana slips effortlessly from her seatbelt, pushes back into the rich leather
upholstery of the dark blue Mercedes 600 limousine, lowers those startling
blue eyes momentarily, turns that head ever so famously and says coyly to
Dodi: "Why don't you go for it?"
Midnight, August 30, 1997: the limousine's driver, Henri Paul, mistaking
Diana's urgings, plants his foot on the powerful vehicle's accelerator as
it slides into the dimly-lit underpass at the Pont de l'Alma doing a reported
190km/hr plus some in a 50km/hr zone.
Just after midnight, August 31, 1997: the Mercedes slams into a concrete
pillar, disintegrates on impact and the driver dies instantly from massive
head injuries and alcohol poisoning. Diana's bodyguard in the front seat
survives, seeing he's the only one obeying the law and wearing a seatbelt.
Proving that money can't buy everything, Dodi dies too. Diana is badly injured.
2am, August 31, 1997: doctors at the Hospital La Pitie Salpetriere
treat Diana for several injuries that don't at first appear life-threatening.
2.15am, August 31, 1997: Dr Bruno Riou, head of intensive care, leaves
the princess's side to take an urgent call from highly-placed French Government
officials who have been in close communication with Buckingham Palace and
British Government constitutional lawyers.
3.25am, August 31, 1997: Dr Riou announces that Diana, Princess of
Wales, has tragically succumbed to her massive internal injuries.
Every waking moment since and, it seems, until the end of time: the
world's newspapers and electronic media, all in the name of sales or ratings,
heap endless praise on Diana.
They file a whole heap of shit about a lonely princess in love and finally
finding peace within her grasp, conveniently forgetting the fact that, given
Diana's track record and Dodi having a trouser zipper designed by Bill Cinton,
the couple probably would have lasted another two weeks, max.
The media is also intent on ignoring the fact that the only good that came
out of forcing this shy, young woman into the glassfish bowl with the dysfunctional
Windors was that she became, as the world's most famous woman, an excellent
money raiser for charity and publicist of worthwhile causes.
If gold-digging Dodi had stuck around and Diana had kept her promise of
withdrawing from public life, she would have soon lapsed into the full-time
role of idle rich bitch whose only claim to fame was to be the next king's
ex-root or mother, depending on how long Liz lasts.
That, and skiing in Aspen or lounging around on millionaire's boats in secluded
tropical surroundings or in the Mediterranean, always in her carefully designed
topless swimsuit where she gets an even suntan on her back, and on her legs.
Piano accordian music please as we fade out from this glowing tribute.
Daa dum daa daa dum daa daaaaa. Da da da da da da da da da daaaaaa da da
da daaaa da da da daaaaaa.......
Report compiled by The Bug's royal writer Don Gordon-Brown
