The lady,the myth,the legend (Shadows of a Princess: Diana, Princess of Wales 1987-1996 - P.D. Jephson)

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Product:	Shadows of a Princess: Diana, Princess of Wales 1987-1996 - P.D. Jephson
Date:	14/07/01 (73 review reads)
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Advantages: Nice eyes

Disadvantages: Air head

The problem about reading books about leading female figures is that women generally write them. A women’s slant on their fellow sex so to speak tends to be over positive and bias rather than the male more cutting approach on either sex.
The author of this one was closer to Diana and perhaps projects a more intelligent view on her over the obsequious so called friends, or the vitriol seething haters who write most books.I tend to be negative on her like most guys,but in here there is something’s positive didn’know.

The 11oclock shows Ricky Chervais called big royal occasions like weddings as cup finals for women and gays. Diana had pretty much those demographics, so clearly demonstrated at her funeral.I can understand why depressed women and men off questionable sexuality could be drawn to this enigmatic vein /conceited gal,but not the embarrassing spurious grief that effected the country.
The guys at the funeral were mostly designated drivers and bought 25 pound bouquets as they stepped over homeless people.I suppose that’s where I have a problem.

What was grating about that week was the way the press tried to make out that we were all devastated by here death.most people I know were shocked, but not sobbing in the streets.
What I like about this book is that there is an opinion from both sides with sycophant comment as well as critique.
Living in Northamptonshire, Diana’s dynasty was evolved here and the Earl is occasionally seen around town. I do think his rousing speech at the Abbey was a little disingenuous when he slagged the media for her demise. At the time he was working for Hello magazine in South Africa with journalist stamped on his temporary visa!.

He was up to his old tricks in the press today saying that Charles has yet to visit her island grave. Well Charlie was the one who bent over backwards to keep Di out of the Fulham mortuary care of our cold queen.
Charles and the Earl
and most of Althorpe village no full well that the Princess of Wales is buried in the family crypt. The island in the family grounds is just a money-spinner to bail out his pathetic debts caused by him running the house down.
Ticket sales are rank at the moment, hence the cutely timed publicity stunt today in the Mail.Charles may not have loved Diana, but he’s not as blatant as foppy Earl Spencer.

Well with my personal animosity aside over the waste of space women, the book proved to be quite intelligent and thought provoking. Especially as it stretches the “arranged marriage”senario that was quite clearly in operation long before the 81 wedding.
I kind of feel sorry for her when she didn’t realize that Camilla was on the scene and that he would be sharing the two. But she did marry him for his position and wealth, rather than true love.I presume there are only about 300 girls pretty enough with the right lineage that can wed Charlie.
Camilla had one requirement, but not the other.
I think its fair to say it was a political wedding back in riot war torn 1981,let alone the Falklands war and depression.

Cads like Hewitt and Gilby are the worse kind of predatory men who find of gullible dizzies like Di.Then again you cant blame her if her husband is having dirty phone calls with the women he loves. If only she hadn’t died in a juxtaposition of irony,I reckon she would have matured fast in her later years.
Or maybe her extreme vanity wouldn’t be able to handle crows feet and cellulite. The first royal plastic surgeon.
The biog goes into her ambivalent invidious relationship with the media and how she used the papers to further her ego. Prearranged photo calls for maximum publicity one day,to press intrusion the next.I especially like the house maids tale of Diana lining up the tabloids every morning to see who had the most flattering and unflattering shots.The next week the ones with the wors
e shots would mysteriously get the best one.

The book tries hard to present Diana’s positive side but struggles hard. I’m sure she did some good and bad charity work. These midnight rendezvous and home visits certainly helped both parties bruised egos and state of health.
She was never really the woman of the people though and I don’t think she ever went out of her way to make a difference.I so wanted her to be different like everyone else.She had a nice smile and a better dresses sense,but at the end of the day she was another vacuous uppity who drowned in her vanity.

Theres plenty about that sensational woman scorned panorama interview, and the amount professionally she contributed. She even had a say in the final cut and ordered extra noddies. These are when you nod your head at the end of the recording and then cut them in appropriately.
Maybe if someone could have got hold of her and pointed in the right direction about then, she would have been a really cool girl. Her looks were starting to fade and I feel that was her biggest problem then, and no longer her asset.

What’s interesting about these books is how the information leeks out to put them together, and lots of it. Even her so called “rock”, butler Paul Burrel and staff were ripping her off. Superficial is not the word to describe the people who surround women like Diana who wants some of it to rub off.
All the time she trusted Burrel, he was itemizing her stuff to nail under his floorboards (allegedly of course). Once the last shovel of dirt thudded against the coffin (she’s in the family crypt really you know), he’s was down to the porn brokers to make some coin.

The book clearly points out that she was surrounded by the wrong hangers on, and wouldn’t hesitate to take out a suitable dagger and plunge it in. But are these people drawn to her, or vice versa.
Prince Charles people come in for some hea
vy stick by the female author. This book is anti man in the sense that the guys closest to her have manipulated and deceived. The author doesn’t seem to expand on her culpability and naivete in the dizzy circles she was now turning in.
Prince Charles had no right to lead her on to a wedding and was an absolute coward to go ahead with the wedding could Mrs Thatch and his mom told him to. A man this week should never be king.

Theres a chapter on Dodi and the publicity stunt summer romance that proved to be her downfall. The author and me both agree that theres no way she would ever marry a playboy Muslim. Especially as he helped produce Honey I shrunk the Kids.
Again you cant help thinking that Diana was on the cusp of being a really women once she hit the big 40.I know she represents all women’s insecurities and fragility’s with a similar love of shopping therapy. Maybe she’s up in heaven with the AIDS patients, or maybe the Versace on Specter Street

It’s a samey perspective on Dis life and has little more to offer than Andrew Morton or all the TV documentaries together.I know my opinions are not everyone’s cup ot Earl Gray,but at least dooyoo gives me the oppurtuniy to have my say.Not many people were during that traumatic week.

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