Diana and Dodi in the lift of the Paris Ritz. Photograph: PA
b>Eve Pollard was on b>BBC Breakfast this morning, announcing that there was a "beneficence" about Diana's smile, as captured in newly released CCTV footage of her in a lift in the Paris Ritz shortly before her death. Apparently, it's an "enormous relief" and has a "calming affect" on us to know she was so at ease minutes before she lost her life. You could have fooled me. If the coverage of the Diana inquest is an example of a calm nation, I'd hate to see us when we're worked up.
We'd expect the b>Daily Mail to get things completely out of perspective of course - it's what they do. ("But what did her last mysterious smile signify?" they ask today. Hmm, what does a smile usually signify? She's not the Mona Lisa.) The b>Daily Mail Watch website is of course having the time of its life, but why are otherwise serious news outlets giving time to this nonsense? Just a month ago, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, pleaded that the tenth anniversary of Diana's death shouldn't be used as an excuse to revive the sort of media circus that arguably killed her in the first place, saying "Let it end here." Fat chance. This is only just the beginning. Expect Eve Pollard to be making regular bulletins soon on the campaign for Diana's canonisation.
Oh, and apparently some bloke called Brown might be announcing an election any minute. Or something.
