I have such mixed feelings about this casting choice. While I generally like Naomi Watts, I think she’s overhyped as an actress, and I get tired of people trying to make her “happen” as a lead actress. She’s pretty and talented, but there’s something so milquetoast about many of her performances post-Mulholland Drive. Naomi was just cast as Princess Diana in Caught in Flight, the bio-pic about the last two years of Diana’s life. I just… I don’t know. Jessica Chastain was originally cast as Diana, but she was either pushed out or she jumped out, and now Naomi is in there.

Naomi Watts will soon be morphing into the People’s Princess. The Oscar-nominated Australian actress, 43, has been cast as the late Princess Diana in Caught in Flight, an upcoming new biopic.

Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and written by Stephen Jeffreys, the film will focus on the last two years in the life of Prince William and Harry’s beloved mother; after famously divorcing Prince Charles, Diana reinvented herself as a global humanitarian and was on the path to self-fulfillment before she died at age 36 in an August 1997 car crash.

“It is such an honor to be able to play this iconic role,” Watts said in a statement. “Princess Diana was loved across the world and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen.”

Last November, it was rumored that Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain (The Help, Tree of Life) was attached to Caught in Flight, which also focuses on Diana’s relationship with Dr. Hasnat Khan, said to be the love of her life.

Diana met Dr. Khan in 1995, and they embarked on a two-year affair — breaking up in 1997. Diana rebounded with billionaire Dodi Al-Fayed, who died with her in the tragic Paris car crash.

[From Us Weekly]

There’s a similar look to Naomi and Diana, and if this was just about aesthetics alone, I wouldn’t be too peeved. But is Naomi “light” enough to play Diana? Meaning that the last two years of Diana’s life were good for her – she was in love, she was rebranding herself, she was free of Charles – she’s was a spiritually “lighter” person. Naomi can only play “morose” and dark. I just went back and read the synopsis of the film, though – apparently, they’re going for “damaged”. Ugh. I’m worried about this film.

Vintage Diana – her last photo shoot with Mario Testino, still one of the best photo shoots ever.

Photos courtesy of WENN, archival Mario Testino images of Diana.

YIKES. I had no idea that various production companies and studios felt like it was okay to make movies about Princess Diana’s life now, but apparently there are several Princess Diana projects in various stages of pre-production. So how do you cast one of the most famous women EVER, in the history of the world? Much like the Grace Kelly project, I would imagine that producers created a master list of blondes who have a passing resemblance to Diana: Charlize, January Jones, La Blanchett, perhaps. Incidentally, La Blanchett as Princess Diana? Epic. I would watch that.

Anyway, there’s a new film called Caught In Flight about one of Diana’s last romantic relationships, with Pakistani doctor Hasnat Kahn. Most of the books written about Diana – by the people who close to her and by those people who actually have a solid journalism background – consistently claim that Diana was deeply in love with Dr. Kahn in the last years of her life, and even when Kahn broke off their relationship in the months just before her death, Diana was still in love with him – and that she only went with Dodi Fayed to make Kahn jealous (which didn’t work). So who to cast as the 30-something Diana in love, at the height of her fame and beauty? Why, American ginger Jessica Chastain, of course. Oooooooh, the Brits are going to hate this one.

It was just over a year ago that it was revealed that two rival Princess Diana biopics were in the works. One, from producer Stephen Evans, was going to be based on the book “Diana: Closely Guarded Secret” by Diana’s lifelong bodyguard, Ken Wharfe. The film was budgeted at $30 million, with boasts of Charlize Theron and Ewan McGregor circling roles. Meanwhile, Pathé films was also developing a biopic with names like Keira Knightley and Dame Helen Mirren (as the Queen Mother) being tossed around.

But it seems, a third project has now leapt into the pole position and it’s bringing along some surprising talent.

2011’s omnipresent Jessica Chastain will dye her hair and cut it short, taking the lead as Princess Diana in “Caught In Flight,” which is sure to be a highly controversial take on her life. Written by Steven Jeffreys (”The Libertine”), the film will focus on Diana’s affair with Dr. Hasnat Kahn that lasted from 1995 until a few months before her death in 1997. He was regarded by many to be the love of her life, and she was said to be devastated when the relationship was over, with some speculating that she dated Dodi Fayed in order to make him jealous. And indeed, the script “Caught In Flight” will apparently portray the Princess “as a damaged person who stalks the doctor after he ends the affair.”

No stranger to tough material, “Downfall” and “Das Experiment” director Oliver Hirschbiegel will direct the film which is already in pre-production. Lensing is gearing up to start in March, with shooting planned for Pakistan, Angola, the South of France and Paris for the film budgeted around $15 million.

It’s certainly a big gear change for Chastain, who will have to wear a British accent for the first time onscreen, in addition to undergoing a complete transformation into a public figure known and beloved by millions. With this picture, the sci-fi spectacle “Horizons” and the Guillermo Del Toro produced horror “Mama” on the way, Chastain refuses to be pigeonholed, with her upcoming roles among her most interesting yet.

[From Indie Wire]

Diana “as a damaged person who stalks the doctor after he ends the affair.” Er… seriously? Yes, she was still in love with Kahn, by most accounts. Yes, she wanted to marry him. Yes, she might have even gone to see Kahn’s family in Pakistan as a “surprise” which he didn’t care for. Yes, Kahn didn’t want all of the drama and attention that Diana brought to everything – at the end of the day, he ended up marrying a no-drama Muslim girl too. And yes, Diana had some issues, but I don’t care for the idea that she was “damaged”. Rough. Let’s not throw around the word “stalking” either. Jesus, the lady is dead.

As for Chastain in the role – I’m concerned, but I don’t flat-out hate it. Jessica is sort of becoming a mini-Blanchett, or a mini-Meryl Streep, and she’s everywhere and she does everything. So I’ll wait and see what she makes of the part.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Is this Newsweek cover offensive? At first glance, I was all “WTF?” but as I keep glancing at through the morning, I don’t find it offensive so much as I find it cheesy. The whole idea behind it – “Diana at 50: What would she be like if she had lived?” is interesting, if macabre. Newsweek also Photoshopped an image of Princess Diana to look like she’s holding an iPhone, so it’s basically like Newsweek is just trying to cause controversy and be dumb about it. Beyond that, I think a lot of us do wonder: What would Diana have thought about Kate Middleton? Would Kate even have gotten this far if Diana was still alive? Would Diana love her daughter-in-law?

The Newsweek piece is written by Tina Brown, now of The Daily Beast, but she used to be major in the British press, and she actually knew (and covered extensively) Princess Diana. Tina Brown was also the editor-in-chief for Vanity Fair for those now iconic Mario Testino photos in 1997, which were Diana’s last formal portraits. Incidentally, Tina Brown also wrote one of the better Diana books, in my opinion: The Diana Chronicles, which is a totally decent weekend read if you ever feel like it. You can read the Newsweek piece here, and here are some highlights from Tina Brown imagining what Diana would be like today:

Diana’s style: Diana would have been 50 this month. What would she have been like? Still great-looking: that’s a given. Her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, with her cornflower-blue eyes and striding sexuality, was a handsome woman to the very end. Fashionwise, Diana would have gone the J.Crew and Galliano route à la Michelle Obama, always knowing how to mix the casual with the glam. There is no doubt she would have kept her chin taut with strategic Botox shots and her bare arms buff from the gym.

Remarriage? At least two, I suspect, on both sides of the Atlantic. Always so professional herself, she would have soon grown exasperated with Dodi Al-Fayed’s hopeless unreliability. After the breakup I see her moving to her favorite city, New York, spending a few cocooned years safely married to a super-rich hedge-fund guy who could provide her with what she called “all the toys”: the plane, the private island, the security detail. Gliding sleekly into her 40s, her romantic taste would have moved to men of power over boys of play. She’d have tired of the hedge-fund guy and drifted into undercover trysts with someone more exciting—a high-mindedly horny late-night talk-show host, or a globe-trotting French finance wizard destined for the Élysée Palace. I suspect she would have retained a weakness for men in uniform, and a yen for dashing Muslim men. (A two-year fling with a Pakistani general, rumored to have links to the ISI, would have been a particular headache to the Foreign Office and the State Department.) Davos and the Clinton Global Initiative would have become her new post-palace power circles. She would perhaps have caused a press sensation with an unplanned pledge from the CGI stage to raise $50 million to help educate women in South Sudan.

Politics: Politically, Diana would have been very much at home with David Cameron and all the old Etonians who now run Britain. She would, much earlier, have parted company with Tony Blair, stung by his failure to use her for big peacemaking missions overseas. He would have tried to woo her back each election cycle, but Diana was shrewd when it came to the conducting of feuds.

Prince Charles & Camilla: I believe her best male friend in later years would have been, poignantly, her reviled first husband. As the financier Sir James Goldsmith once put it, “When you marry your mistress, you create a job vacancy,” and Charles, having married Camilla, would suddenly have found the company of his ex strangely comforting. Diana, with time, would no longer have found Charles’s causes tiresome. Rather, she would have empathized, and asked his advice about hers. After so many loves and losses, she would finally have let go of her rancor toward Camilla. The duchess’s galleon-size Lady Bracknell hat at William’s wedding would have offered satisfaction enough.

Petty girl stuff: Among her global girlfriend set, she might view Queen Rania’s beauty, youth, and social conscience as a triple threat that should be watched. After some initial competitiveness with Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, she’d have probably bonded with her at the G20 dinner over ways to dodge Berlusconi.

On Kate Middleton: And Kate, the newly minted Duchess of Cambridge? How would Diana have handled her son’s steadfast affection for a woman other than herself? The rising public adoration of Kate would have afforded Diana some tricky moments. Pleased, yes. But, like Frances Shand Kydd—who, days before Diana’s wedding, suddenly burst out, “I have good long legs, like my daughter”—Diana would have had to adjust to a broadening of the limelight. Her edge over Kate, of course, was her own epic of princessly suffering, which would always make Diana’s story more interesting. (“Happily ever after” will never have the same allure to the press as “It all went horribly wrong.”) Diana, rejoicing in her flawless Spencer pedigree, would have positioned herself as a firm defender of the Middletons against the palace snobs and ostentatiously made Carole Middleton, Kate’s dynamic mother, her new BFF.

On charity: In the world disasters of the last few years—9/11, the tsunamis, the Pakistan earthquake, Hurricane Katrina—you know Diana would have been first at the scene in a hard hat with a camera crew (and, by now, 10 million followers on Twitter). She would have kept her spotlight trained on individual sufferers whom she’d continued to visit and care for and touch. At a time when the world has disaster fatigue, I miss the generosity of her star power and what it could accomplish.

[From Newsweek]

Eh. I think Tina is right on about some things – Diana’s charity work would likely have continued and grown, and she would be the leading humanitarian in the world, I think. And I do think Diana and Charles would have buried the hatchet – they had already begun to when she died. But the rest of it… I don’t know. I don’t see Diana marrying and divorcing some American hedge fund guy. I’m not sure she would have ever remarried. And as for what she would have thought of the Kate Middleton… God, I don’t even know if William would have even stayed with Kate for so many years if he weren’t still so damaged by his mother’s death. He sought out Kate’s stability, you know? And if Diana was still alive, perhaps he wouldn’t have needed what Kate gives him. That’s just my theory.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Prince Harry has given a new interview to Bild, a German publication. It’s online, and since I don’t speak German, Google Chrome translated the page for me, with typically hilarious results. For example, “I know that the Germans are always very hospitable, and I look forward to the Berlin meet … As long as nobody on the football touches on! I have been a few times in Germany, it is a great country.” Yes. I love Google Chrome translations. Anyway, other sources had Harry’s quotes with a much better translation, and… it kind of breaks my heart. He talks about his mom, and how he still thinks about her and how he hopes that she’s proud of the work he does. I’m seriously tearing up over here!

Prince Harry has praised his brother’s bride-to-be Kate Middleton as ‘the sister I always wished for’. Harry, 26, said he was ‘enormously pleased’ about William’s engagement to the 28-year-old, adding that she was a welcome addition to the Royal Family. The couple announced their engagement last month after an eight-year courtship, and will marry in Westminster Abbey on April 29 next year.

Prince Harry made his comments during an interview with the German newspaper Bild, ahead of his visit to Berlin tomorrow to receive an award recognising his charity work. The royal will be presented with a Golden Heart on live television during Ein Herz fur Kinder (A Heart for Children), Germany’s largest television fundraising gala.

He said: ‘I have known Kate for years and it’s great that she is now becoming part of the family. I am enormously pleased. I always wished for a sister and now I have one.’

The prince also spoke about the influence his mother Diana, Princess of Wales and father, the Prince of Wales, have had on his charity work. Harry told the newspaper: ‘I hope that my mother would be proud of me.’

He added: ‘I always think of my mother in everything I do. It is correct that my brother and I often ask ourselves what our mother would have done in this situation. That helps us again and again. But I also learned enormously from my father, who has been engaged with numerous charities for decades. My mother was to me, like my brother, a role model. And also to many people worldwide. I believe that people took to her so warmly because she possessed the ability to take away their embarrassment in whatever situation she met them in. She was immediately sympathetic. Exactly like her, I know that I enjoy a privileged position as a member of the royal family and I must use what was given to me to try to make a difference in important topics.’

[From The Daily Mail]

Sweet little ginger mama’s boy. I would mother the hell out of him, I really would. This is the one who will break hearts forever. Also: Harry should start a “What Would Diana Do?” (WWDD?) movement. We could make bracelets.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Prince William doesn’t get as much press as his brother here in America. This is both good and bad – Prince Harry can seem at times like a racist douche, but at other times Harry is “the hot but dumb prince”. It must be a little difficult for Prince William to be in the shadows (publicity-wise) of his younger brother as of late.

But Prince William is trying to rectify the situation. Will is speaking out like never before in an exclusive statement to The Daily Mail. Will has just become the Royal Patron to the Child Bereavement Charity, and for the first time Will is talking (or writing) in detail about his mother’s death.

Prince William says about Princess Diana’s death: “Never being able to say the word “Mummy” again in your life sounds like a small thing. However, for many, including me, it’s now really just a word – hollow and evoking only memories.” He also writes, “Real grief often does not hit home until much later. For many it is a grief never entirely lost. Life is altered as you know it, and not a day goes past without you thinking about the one you have lost. I know that over time it is possible to learn to live with what has happened and, with the passing of years, to retain or rediscover cherished memories.” So much for the British stiff upper lip. Here’s William’s exclusive statement to The Daily Mail:

Yesterday I became Royal Patron of the Child Bereavement Charity. I took on this role because I know what it is like to lose someone you love so much. Losing a child or being a child when your parent dies is the awful reality for over 23,000 families in Britain every year.

Initially, there is a sense of profound shock and disbelief that this could ever happen to you. Real grief often does not hit home until much later. For many it is a grief never entirely lost. Life is altered as you know it, and not a day goes past without you thinking about the one you have lost.

However, I also know that over time it is possible to learn to live with what has happened and, with the passing of years, to retain or rediscover cherished memories.

Our families and friends play a crucial role in coping with grief. The Child Bereavement Charity can never replace their love. It can, though, provide another, sometimes invaluable lifeline. The charity is there to help the bereaved directly. It also works with those in the community – such as teachers, nurses and the police – who have to deal with the realities of death on a daily basis.

The Child Bereavement Charity has another vital role: raising awareness of child bereavement and informing people of where they can get help and support. Yesterday, the charity launched its Mother’s Day campaign. The theme is “Silence”. The silence that death leaves. The silence of death’s taboo. The silence of listening.

Mother’s Day is so painful for grieving families; for mothers remembering a lost child or for children longing for their mother – a day of happiness turned to sadness. Losing a close family member is one of the hardest experiences that anyone can ever endure. Never being able to say the word “Mummy” again in your life sounds like a small thing.

However, for many, including me, it’s now really just a word – hollow and evoking only memories. I can therefore wholeheartedly relate to the Mother’s Day campaign as I too have felt – and still feel – the emptiness on such a day as Mother’s Day.

This year I hope that, through the Child Bereavement Charity’s tireless and dedicated hard work, for some families at least, it will be a little less painful. For those who have lost the one they love, rest assured they will be watching over you.

From The Daily Mail

Some celebrity/royal-watchers have pointed out in the past that Prince William never seemed to really deal with his mother’s death. Considering the emotional resonance behind his statement, I’d have to disagree. I think Will still feels Diana’s death acutely, almost painfully, on a daily basis. Perhaps this is why Will is reticent to settle down with Kate Middleton. He has both a fear of abandonment and survivor’s guilt. But that’s just my diagnosis. I’m still very happy that Will can turn his personal grief into something positive – it’s what his mother would have done.

Prince William is shown at a reception for the The Child Bereavement Charity held at the Sladmore Contemporary Art Gallery in London on 3/12/09 and also at a Dinner to mark the 40th Anniversary of Centrepoint held at St. James’ Palace State Apartments in London later that night. Credit: WENN.com

Photographer David Bailey would like the Queen to know he couldn’t care less about a knighthood, thank you very much. The 71-year-old Brit, famous for his decades-long career photographing many of the most beautiful women in the world, is claiming that he would never include the late Princess Diana on any “Most Beautiful” list.

Bailey said Diana is “a pleasant enough woman, but a great beauty she wasn’t”. The Queen might not have a problem with that, but Bailey also chimed in about Prince Charles, saying that The Prince of Wales “looks like a banjo player in Appalachia.” Yikes.

No wonder Patrick Dermarchelier was the late Diana, Princess of Wales’s favourite photographer. David Bailey, his old rival, had no respect.

Appearing on Brush with Fame on Sky Arts this week, Bailey is still unrepentant about saying Diana was not the most beautiful woman in the world.

“I mean she was a nice girl, she came to my studio a few times and she was a pleasant enough woman, but a great beauty she wasn’t,” says the 71-year-old snapper.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he adds: “I remember when they used to use the word ‘handsome’ to describe Prince Charles, but God you got a stretched imagination – he looks like a banjo player in Appalachia. There goes my knighthood.”

From The Daily Telegraph

The Prince Charles comment I can understand – it’s rude, but I get it. But in my opinion, Princess Diana was one of the most luminous beauties of the twentieth century. The camera loved her, and though she didn’t have an average beauty, what she had was extremely striking, a kind of beauty I prefer in women and men. And at the very least, why bash someone who is dead?

Bailey worked for Vogue Magazine, and got famous in the 1960s photographing many of the personalities of that era. Jean Shrimpton, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Marianne Faithfull were all photographed by Bailey. He won a CBE in 2001 and he’s considered a living legend in his field. He was also married to Catherine Deneuve at one point. He may be moving into an era where he’s considered a bitter old fart, though. He sure is acting like one.

David Bailey is shown on 9/2/08. Credit: WENN. Photos of Diana are circa 1996 and 1997. Credit: UPI/Newscom

Many of us have someone, often in their family, who we feel competitive with. This is often fueled by comparisons people make, sometimes well-intentioned and sometimes not. For example my grandmother recently described my cousin as ‘fat’, and commented on how successful her sister had been losing the baby weight. Said cousin was still pregnant at the time.

This is bad enough, but can you imagine being pitted against a pretty, glamorous relative on a global scale? Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, says that the media’s cruelty to her contributed to her eating issues. She doesn’t say that comparisons to Princess Diana made it worse, but that’s what I got from her comments:

‘It’s pretty hard to change people’s perceptions,’ she says. And, back then, it really mattered to her what people thought. She said she’d read headlines such as princess of pork or 82 per cent of men say they’d rather sleep with a goat than Fergie, and she’d take them all to heart. ‘I just believed they were true,’ she says. ‘I was so unhappy I ate all the time, and then I was pilloried for being overweight, and on the cycle went. I didn’t know how to break it.’

Telegraph

Wikipedia notes that Princess Diana was noted for her ‘compassion, style, charisma, and high-profile charity work, as well as her difficult marriage to Prince Charles’. Despite Sarah’s charity work, she is best known for her Weight Watchers endorsements and friendly relationship with her ex-husband. Sarah and Diana were friends and talked about their public image, says Sarah.

“I remember quite clearly Diana saying to me: ‘Well, it’s easier for you. I’m at the top of the pedestal, and I have only one way to go. You are at the bottom, so you can really only go up.”‘

Sydney Morning Herald

Wow, that must have made Fergie feel much better, having the Queen-in-waiting try and cheer her on. Although maybe that kind of stiff upper lip attitude is how they do it in Britain.

Despite being a public figure in Britain, which has the most vicious tabloid newspapers in the world, Fergie says she’d do it all over again, but better.

You have to think of the Royal family as being like a brand, yah? There are CEOs protecting the brand, and I didn’t really fit in. Maybe if I’d had an adviser to lead me through it all I would have weathered it a bit better. I wish I had done it differently. I wish I could do it all over again.’

‘Really?’ I ask her. After all the criticism and ridicule, she’d still go back into the public eye, despite knowing how potentially difficult it all is? ‘Oh, yes,’ she says enthusiastically. ‘I’d still marry Andrew, of course. He is a wonderful man. I’d just deal with it better. I’d ride the storms. I’d see that what is said about me is here one day and gone the next. At the time I thought I had failed. Now I think I was successful in a way, successful at failing.’

Telegraph

That’s one way to turn failure on it’s head, by declaring it a success at failing. Sarah has managed to raise two children who have yet to be photographed in a compromising manner (exiting clubs, yes, but not doing anything notable), raise funds for charity and maintain a good relationship with her ex-husband. She is also a producer on a new film starring Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria.

Sarah Ferguson is shown on 12/6/08 and 11/29/08 signing copies of her children’s book Tea for Ruby. Credit: WENN

Princess Diana’s life and death has probably been the subject of more gossip than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan combined. Now, the verdict has finally been reached at the latest inquiry into the death of Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed in the Alma Tunnel in France. It is consistent with the French inquiry into the accident and finds the paparazzi and chauffeur responsible:

Following three-and-a-half days of deliberation, the inquest jury has returned a majority verdict of unlawful killing through gross negligence with the shared blame resting between chauffeur Henri Paul and the paparazzi.

The jury had been told by the Coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker that such a verdict effectively implicated manslaughter.

The findings come ten-and-a-half years after Diana, Dodi and Henri Paul died after the Mercedes they were travelling in crashed into a pillar in the Alma Tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997.

Contributing to their deaths, the jury found, were the fact that neither Diana nor Dodi were wearing a seatbelt, and the fact Mr Paul had been drink-driving.

They also singled out the paparazzi’s speed and manner of driving as factors.

Sydney Morning Herald

There have been many conspiracy theories about the accident, mostly that the British intelligence agency M16 was involved or acting under the orders of the Royal Family.

The other theories disproved by the investigation are that Diana was pregnant (she wasn’t), and that she and Dodi were engaged (nope, that wasn’t true either). It doesn’t matter how deep the investigations probe, or how many inquiries are held, not everyone will believe the results.

Dodi Al-Fayed’s father, Harrods owner Mohammed Al-Fayed has previously been the main source of the alternate theories, and it has been suggested that he will appeal the verdict. He has two memorials in his London department store, one of which has a wine glass that Diana drank from, containing an ‘engagement’ ring Dodi had bought the day before their deaths.

The inquiry cost the British taxpayer £10 million, and took 93 days of a jury sitting to come to the verdict. They are now excused from further jury duty for life, if they desire.

The best that can come out of the inquiry is this: If you drink and drive, speed, and don’t wear a seatbelt, an accident is likely to occur. It doesn’t matter how important you are, it can happen to anyone.

Some details from Wikipedia.

It may have taken ten years for the inquiry into Princess Diana’s death to even start, probably because there wasn’t really a need for one. She was once a royal, but she did her duty – produced heirs for the throne. She was basically famous for being famous, and supporting worthy causes. One of the major controversies surrounding her death may have been solved. It turns out she wasn’t pregnant, according to evidence given at the British inquiry into the car crash by pathologist Robert Chapman.

“An established pregnancy will show one a change in the size of the uterus, a change in the thickness of the lining and presence of a gestation sac — an embryo with membranes — attached to the wall of the uterus, and there will be changes also in the appearance of the ovaries.”

“Were any of these indications present here?” counsel to the inquest Nicholas Hilliard asked.

“No,” Chapman said.

[Sydney Morning Herald]

Apparently it is standard practice to examine a woman of childbearing age’s womb and ovaries.

But the pathologist doesn’t rule out that she could have been less than 14 days pregnant. Of course, it is unlikely that Diana herself would have known she was pregnant in those early stages either.

“Certainly from day one to seven there could not or would not be anything to see,” he said.

“From day seven to 14 you might see something. Thereafter there is an increasing likelihood of being able to see things which would indicate pregnancy.”

Dodi’s own father Mohammed Al Fayed believed that the princess was pregnant and that Dodi and Diana were killed in a plot orchestrated by Prince Phillip and the British intelligence service M16. Two such conspiracy theorists were in the court, but were removed after causing a disruption.

The other big conspiracy was that Dodi and Diana were engaged to be married, and that she was going to reveal this outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which is why the photographers were there to chase her into that fateful tunnel. Or possibly she was going to announce the pregnancy. Which hardly seems likely – surely Diana would have given the exclusive to Hello magazine. Or done another Panorama interview.

Note by Celebitchy: I do think there’s more to this story than a simple car crash. Princess Diana wrote a letter 10 months before her death saying that factions were planning a car accident for her to clear the way for Charles to remarry. She may not have been pregnant, but it’s pretty suspicious that she died in the way she predicted.

So when you have a poll of the most memorable television moments of the last 50 years, what would you include? The final episode of Friends? When Fonzie jumped the shark on Happy Days?

Turns out the British think a little more broadly than me.

Top Ten Television moments of the last 50 years
1. Twin Towers Collapse
2. Princess Diana’s Funeral
3. Neil Armstrong’s Lunar Landing 1969
4. Collapse of the Berlin Wall
5. Bob Geldof requesting viewers to ‘Give us your f**king money’ at LiveAid
6. The Two Ronnies ‘Four Candles’ comedy sketch
7. Dancing Ricky Gervais as The Office manager David Brent
8. Monty Python’s ‘Dead Parrot’ Sketch
9. England Winning the soccer World Cup 1966
10. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Watch the videos below, thanks to News.com.au for linking them.

I’m glad that the terrorism and deaths are balanced out by Monty Python’s comedy and Bob Geldof swearing. Some obvious contenders for most memorable moment that are missing would be Princess Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles, or maybe the year 2000 being celebrated. Although who was at home watching TV on that night?

1. Twin Towers Collapse

2. Princess Diana’s Funeral

3. Neil Armstrong’s Lunar Landing 1969

4. Collapse of the Berlin Wall

5. Bob Geldof requesting viewers to ‘Give us your f**king money’ at LiveAid

6. The Two Ronnies ‘Four Candles’ comedy sketch

7. Dancing Ricky Gervais as The Office manager David Brent

8. Monty Python’s ‘Dead Parrot’ Sketch

9. England Winning the soccer World Cup 1966

10. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy

The poll of most memorable TV moments was conducted by Whitehaven in Cumbria, UK, which will be the first place in the UK to switch off the analogue signal to switch to digital television.