by Kitty Kelley
* The government can restrict journalists because there are no formal guarantees of freedom of speech in Britain. Rather than be restricted by law, British journalists decided to restrict themselves by establishing the Press Complaints Commission in 1991 to monitor their excesses. The commission of seventeen people includes local, regional, and national newspaper editors. It has no enforcement power but is obligated to publish its findings.
* To commemorate her forty years on the throne, the Queen authorized a BBC television documentary, Elizabeth R: A Year in the Life of the Queen. The film focused on her work as head of state and showed little of her family. “The Palace felt it was perhaps necessary to remind people what the Queen did and her enormous devotion to duty,” said producer Edward Mirzoeff. “We deliberately tried not to reveal everything about her life.” The New York Times described the film as “the most boring BBC import ever to make its way to American public television.” The Queen loved it and knighted the producer.
* Six months before the Britannia was to be decommissioned, the Defense Minister announced that a new $100 million ship would be built in time for the Queen’s golden jubilee in 2002. “The Britannia is a symbol of the Crown, the kingdom, and its maritime traditions,” he said, “and should be funded by the nation.”
* In 1997, Britain’s annual survey of the 1,000 wealthiest people listed Diana as 916th with a personal fortune of $98 million.
* Ridiculed in Britain, Fergie came to the U.S., where she was treated like royalty. Her memoir, My Story, became a best-seller, earning her more than $3.7 million. She was paid $1.2 million to appear in a commercial for Ocean Spray Cranapple Juice and another $1 million to represent Weight Watchers International. Weeks after her lucrative American promotions, she amazed the Queen’s bankers by paying off her debts of $6.2 million. “I love Americans,” she said. “They give a girl a break.”
* Born Fayed, the father later added the “al” to his name after he bought Harrods department store in London and the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
* The British press noted that the Queen’s subjects had never seen her cry in public until she bade farewell to Britannia , three months after Diana’s funeral. Her Majesty maintained a stoic repose during her father’s funeral and the funeral of the Princess of Wales. But she was unable to hide her distress when the royal yacht launched by her in 1953 was decommissioned in 1997.
* Tina Sinatra speculated in Vanity Fair that the sterling silver plaque inscribed with a poem that Dodi gave to Diana might be the same plaque that Tina’s former husband had given to her. Dodi had seen it in Sinatra’s home and admired it. He later borrowed it but, she claims, he never returned it.
*In her letter the author mistakenly used an uppercase C.
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by H.B. Productions, Inc.
Afterword copyright © 2010 by H. B. Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieving system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
“Funeral Blues” copyright © 1940 by W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
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First eBook Edition: October 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56854-8