The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
On the night of my world-famous birthday party, Aug. 31, 1997, on my island off Vancouver, we were celebrating in the world-famous outdoor dancing party to finish off the summer when my daughter rushed in and dragged me aside with an urgent message. The scribbler assumed the cottage must have burned down. It was worse. She told me Di and Dodi had just been killed in a car crash in Paris. Next morning, as all the kids claimedÑbeing kidsÑthat they had to rush off, school and all that coming up, they left the detritus remains of the holidays in the usual wreckage. My companion, who is sharper than the ace of spades, said, "Next week is going to be the biggest story in the worldÑher funeral. You gotta be there." I looked at her, still recovering from the world-famous birthday. "Besides," she said, "you covered her wedding. You should be there at her funeral." We raced to an ATM. We raced to the ferry, raced through 18 red lights on the way to the Vancouver airport, I flew over the pole to London and picked up the phone. I said to the editor of Maclean's, "What do you think about me covering Princess Di's funeral?" He said, "Wow, what will that cost us?" I said, "I'm phoning from Heathrow airport." He said, "Oh." Which is the sign of a smart editor. One thing really puzzled me at the fated girl's wedding. I happened to be seated, with my usual luck, in a press seat over the altar in St. Paul's Cathedral looking right down on Queen Elizabeth not 25 feet away. And was struck, throughout the ceremony, by the glum look on her face. (The last time we met was on the royal yacht Britannia in Victoria harbour on the Wet Coast and I was surprised, in conversation, how much in person she was so more beautiful than in pictures.) The bride, this day in 1981, was as we know 19. And Charles, the twit, was 32. All the Fleet Street talk was that the imperious Prince Philip, knowing that they needed an heir to the crown, ordered his dithering son to find the only remaining virgin in Great BritainÑand found her. And most interesting/puzzling to me, as mentioned above, was how Q.E. II seemed to be so glum. Most mothers of the groom are supposed to be gleaming. In retrospect, as the sad events unfolded with Di's famous televised confession that there were in fact three peopleÑthe Rotweiler aka Parker-BowlesÑin the marriage and it got "rather crowded. And I thought the wise mother in that day in St. Paul's knew it was doomed. And so we move, in the dying days of 2003, to Toronto. And the people who want to make millions over the corpse have unveiled a disgusting "tribute" to the poor, confused princess called "Diana, A Celebration"Ña huge concept of her dressesÑwhat else?Ñher childhood diaries, her alleged bloodline that was even better than the Windsors who tried to wipe out their German traces by shoving the Mountbadden trace out the window. See 'Stone' P.# Con't from P.# Room after room, the milking of the dead girl goes on. Posters claiming that Di can claim "bloodlines from the Kings of Aragon, Cyprus, France, Jerusalem, Portugal, Scotland, the Holy Roman Emperors, the Dukes of Bavaria, the Dukes of Savoy, and a variety of other sovereigns." This scribbler happened to be in London several months back and, wandering through the area where as a young classy lass she lived as a "Sloane Ranger"Ñwhere all the upper-class ladies hung out. And thereÑon the steps of Da Mario's Pizzeria is engraved in the stone steps: "Princess Diana's Favorite Pizzeria." There is no shame. Charles Spencer, Di's brother, is obviously behind all this. The guy arranging it, one John Norman says, "I'm in the exhibition business. I did TitanicÑthe exhibit that toured a few years backÑand now it's Diana. It's that simple." It's so simple that this milking of money over a corpseÑthe Toronto North American premiere before going to New York and then Australia and New Zealand that will slather over the 7.5 metre pearl-laden wedding trainÑthat it will make millions over a simple dead girl. And, so wonderfully apt, this cynical exhibit will stay in TorontoÑwith an overflowing gift shop of kitchy knick knacks until AprilÑis in the Design Exchange on Bay Street in TorontoÑthe home of Canada's money, this very place the former pad of the Toronto Stock Exchange. And where Conrad Black has until recently held his annual shareholders meeting of Hollinger. What people are doing to Diana is a paean to cynicism.
