[garinda]

I spent the night before she died at a small party at Kenneth Branagh/Helena Bonham Carter's. I know, forgive me, more name dropping. Yawn.

Diana was the main topic of conversation that night.

Her life that summer had become a bad operetta.

I liked her, in my own republican way.

She was the first high-profile person on the world stage to actually touch an AIDS sufferer. Thus dispelling some myths about how the disease was spread, and helping to breakdown some prejudices. Hardly a safe, cosy cause to take on, at that time.

A selfish reason I liked her, my atracting her as client doubled my salary overnight. Whoo-hoo.

She was flawed.

Who isn't.

I stayed over at friend's house, in alien north London, the night after the party.

I was in the shower, when the door opened, and north London friend said 'Diana's dead.'

I replied instinctively with 'They've killed her.'

With hindsight do I think she was murdered?

No.

I think she died because she wasn't wearing a seat belt.