[strange flora] mexican jumping beans

Continued here … a small, thin-shelled section of a seed capsule containing the larva of a small gray moth called the jumping bean moth (Laspeyresia saltitans).

After consuming the seed within the capsule section, the robust, yellowish-white larva has the peculiar habit of throwing itself forcibly from one wall to the other, thereby causing the jumping movements of the capsule.

Mexican jumping bean capsules typically separate into three parts or sections, some of which contain a moth larva. It is these separate sections (technically called carpels) that are sold as "jumping beans."

[voyages] nouvelle zélande

Ce pays propose probablement une diversité et une richesse naturelle sans égal. Les amateurs de contes et légendes se raviront des fabuleux paysages de Milford Sound et de la vallée voisine à Rotorua. Sans mentionner les falaises de la côte ouest de l'île du sud.

Ceux qui aiment le sport combiné à un environement exceptionnel se délecteront à Abel Tasman, Queenstown ou encore au Glacier Franz Joseph. Les villes de Christchurch et Dunedin seront aussi vous étonner. Une ambiance européenne y règne et la spontanéité néo-zélandaise est loin d'être égalée.

Enfin, la vie animale, elle aussi est très présente dans ce pays, notamment sur la côte est du pays dans la péninsule d'Otago, sur la côte est de l'île du sud. Nouvelle Zélande.

[blair in iraq] entrenched position killed debate

Entrenched positions kill debate and produce a chin-thrust-forward, pugnacious stance which brooks no criticism or question. Take Blair in Iraq, for example. Louise Radnovsky, at Cherwell 24 Jan 28, 2005, wrote:

Palestinian children are brought up with such an indoctrinated and institutional hatred of Israel and Israelis that there is an infinite supply of suicide bombers and martyrs. Israel will never kill them all, and the longer it tries the more horrifying the scale of the death in the region will become.

There ’s no possibility of an answer to the conflict, because the only people with the power to produce and enforce such an answer have buried themselves up to the neck in racial hatred and enmity, on both sides. A ’genuine and lasting peace’ , wonderfully impossible clich that it is, requires first and foremost a change of attitude. That, unfortunately, is harder to effect than withdrawal from any territory. Once a person, or a culture, becomes stuck in an entrenched position, they are almost impossible to shift. Witness Blair and Bush in the run up to the war in Iraq.

Everybody knew, from the moment Blair started singling out the Iraqi regime in speeches nine months or so after September 11, that war was inevitable. A decision was made somewhere between London and Texas, and all the logical, fact-based analysis in the ensuing period was irrelevant. The democratic checks and balances were invoked, and proven irrelevant. Cabinet ministers resigned, and were ignored.

Millions took to the streets, then went home. The true reason? Not that Blair was particularly stubborn, or arrogant, or any of the other labels the nationals stuck to him. The real reason that we went to war in spite of the absence of any sort of mandate or rational motivation, was that Blair had dug himself in, and was politically trapped. Backing down simply wasn ’t an option, however strong the consensus or the evidence.

It’s easy to have the courage of your convictions. It’s a lot harder to look beyond the trench in which you find yourself, and see the situation as it really is. Until our world leaders and people in the countries they lead stop fighting their own corners, we are unlikely to find solutions to such complicated problems.

You can call this simplistic but look around the blogrolls and see people grouped according to affiliation. That’s where the problem lies in embryonic form, that's why Iain Dale needed to create a non-aligned section in his lists and that's why a pro-Worstall critique was possible when the politics differed on certain points. My question is where are you more likely to get reasoned debate along party political lines or amongst a loose confederation of the non-aligned?

[tim worstall] entrepeneur, free marketeer and blogfather

Tim Worstall, for example, would abolish the DTI forthwith and Chris Dillow explains the reasoning thus:

1. If business wants to hire management consultants, it should do so with its own money, not the tax-payers'. I don't see the market failure that requires state intervention here.

2. The state can do a lot to create the conditions for business success. But none of it requires a DTI - low and simple taxes, light regulation, a well-educated workforce and good transport are not in the DTI's remit.

3. Insofar as it's the job of the state to help others - and I think it is to a greater extent than Tim does, I guess - it should help individuals, not companies. The £5bn we spend on the DTI could be better spent elsewhere, contributing to citizens' income.

I come from a different direction on this issue, working as I do for a Ministry of Trade and Overseas Economic Cooperation in a consultative role, as my Minister put it a few hours ago when discussing this article I’m now writing.

Certainly business deals with business internationally but with a benevolent and keen Ministry behind your business, easing your way through all the red tape not necessarily imposed by your own country and doing things like creating free economic zones, as we have, and running publicity for your firm, such as at the coming Trade Fair in London on October 19th, surely your path is smoothed.

And don’t forget that a Ministry sees the whole picture at inter-state level, whereas a business sees things at Chamber of Commerce level.

No doubt I’ll be taken apart on this and it raises the question DK raised earlier in slightly different words – why would I wish to run a profile on someone who does not appear to be remotely connected with my world?

The answer lies partly in my rugby days. For example, we'd visit Durham and as guests, be feted in the dining hall with as much sustenance and wine as we could handle while the lads were elsewhere preparing, before walking it off together up to the field.

Then it would be pure murder mayhem in the mud for 80 minutes, followed by the double line and clapping the other team off the field, followed by more sustenance and bonhomie and taking in the England Scotland match on the big screen, cheery farewells and home we'd go. It's because of this I don't give a rat's a-s- about a man's views, as long as he's interesting and a good sort.

And anyway, Tim Worstall is connected with my world – the blogging world and as one of the elder statesmen and founding fathers, I see him as somewhat of a mentor. Certainly Tim has been more than encouraging to more than one blogger starting out on that long road.

And let’s face it, the man is interesting, dammit.

What is a UK blogger, notwithstanding his stints of Timmy Elsewhere interspersed, doing in Portugal? Why was he in Russia for three years? Why does he deal in precious metals? Why is he so highly sought after by US and UK think-tanks for articles? How did a successful businessman get himself into the writer’s world? What beer does he drink? Why does he get 2400 hits or whatever it is per day at his blog? Too many questions, too fragmented and impossible to know where to start.

We’ll start with the header on his blog. DK informs that the tagline to his blog is the quote that all economics is "all obvious or trivial except..." The answer, apparently, is "comparative advantage" but even this non-trivial concept was explained concisely and clearly as we wandered down to the pub. So already we’re pulled in two different directions. Let’s deal with comparative advantage first, quoting from Wikipedia.

In economics, the theory of comparative advantage explains why it can be beneficial for two parties [countries, regions, individuals, ...] to trade, even though one of them may be able to produce every kind of item more cheaply than the other. What matters is not the absolute cost of production, but rather the ratio between how easily the two countries can produce different goods. The concept is highly important in modern international trade theory.

Comparative advantage may be compared to absolute advantage. When one entity (be it a company or a country) is able to produce more efficiently than another entity it has an absolute advantage: that is, assuming equal inputs, the entity with an absolute advantage will have a greater output.

David Ricardo used an example involving England and Portugal. In Portugal it is possible to produce both wine and cloth with less work than it takes in England. However, the relative costs of producing those two goods are different in the two countries. In England it is very hard to produce wine, and only moderately difficult to produce cloth. In Portugal both are easy to produce.

Therefore, while it is cheaper to produce cloth in Portugal than England, it is cheaper still for Portugal to produce excess wine, and trade that for English cloth. Conversely, England benefits from this trade because its cost for producing cloth has not changed but it can now get wine at closer to the cost of cloth.

"That it is logically true need not be argued before a mathematician; that it is not trivial is attested by the thousands of important and intelligent men who have never been able to grasp the doctrine for themselves or to believe it after it was explained to them." — Paul Samuelson

Now, view Mr. Worstall’s enigmatic triple-dot-curtailed comment through this filter and things become slightly less opaque. Point number one about him – you have to be on the ball, as he can lead you a merry dance.

Coming back to the other point: as we wandered down to the pub - what pub? This is answered by DK himself:

He invited me to stay - under no obligation [other than to sort a few tech problems!] - when I was very down and it was as pleasant and relaxing [and interesting] a week as I have ever spent. I am currently working on a few projects with him and he's efficient too.

This would have to be self-effacement of the most abject kind. When my own blog was down and I e-mailed Tim for urgent help, he immediately gave me an e-mail address and said: This is the man to contact. And who was the guru? DK. Few technical problems indeed!

So, Tim likes a pint it seems and now one can get a further insight into the man by the same question – how do you apportion your day - addressed to two different parties. Tim’s response:

Day? Up, read the papers, blog, walk the dogs, work, lunch, work, bike ride [or siesta, depending], walk the dogs, work, pub.

Good, good. The same question to DK:

Tim Worstall rises early in the morning, which is easy in the mild Portuguese weather, to begin his trawl through the blogs; he writes, both his own blog and his commissioned articles, until about six -- with a short break to walk the dogs - and then drifts down to his favourite pub to drink SuperBock and read [either a vaguely trashy novel or something weightier, depending on which day it is].

Amusing, entertaining and remarkably relaxing to sit with [he is not a man who feels that he has to talk incessantly], our evenings in the pub were spent - when not chatting to the local residents that Tim seems to be so popular with - companionably reading books, drinking, and discussing points of interest.

The pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place but as a seeming workaholic, perhaps it’s best to return to his ventures. The precious metal business, for instance. He describes scandium thus:

… today's gratuitous scandium reference. We have two examples in the day job, The Low Hanging Fruit Company [motto " Scandium, It's Rocks!"]. Adding scandium to aluminium alloys provides a number of benefits and you'll have seen the bike frames and baseball bats made out of this stuff [yes, we have or do supply all of those manufacturers].

If you add it to the alloy that makes wings for aeroplanes, there is one little benefit. As it does not oxidise, you do not need to paint or lacquer the wing surface, thus saving 1 - 2 % of the total weight of the plane. Yes, this is aerospace, so it takes a decade to get a new alloy into the market but that 1 - 2 % fuel saving on every single flight is coming to you from both major manufacturers in the next few years …

There's also another benefit, one that seems to be driven by a groups of British scientists. When you weld steel, the weld is stronger than the surrounding plate : you expect the actual piece of steel to bend or break before the weld. With aluminium, the weld is the weak spot.

However, if you add scandium to both the weld wire and the plate, hey presto, the weld is stronger than the surrounding alloy. This opens up the possibility that in a decade's time we will stop using rivets in aircraft : we'll simply weld them together. That in itself would save a massive 10% of the weight of an aircraft. Think of that as the earthquake.

So we have here a man driven by what he sees as the bleedin’ obvious and DK concurs: Tim is friendly [provided he has had his morning coffee], enthusiastic and convinced of his arguments, or he wouldn't make them.

A man with a mission and my experience of such people, my profile of them if you like, is that these are probably well-travelled, experienced, friendly, able to let their product sell itself if presented correctly and with an eye for the main chance.

DK’s take: Having lived in many places around the world - Portugal [where he currently resides], Russia and the US to name but three - Tim is convinced of man's essential drive: everyone wants to make a buck and they thrive in the conditions - minimal interference and regulation - that facilitate this. On being asked, "Why did you go into dealing rare metals?" his answer is commendably to the point: "I saw a gap in the market."

Says Theodore Gray: Tim Worstall is an interesting character: An Englishman living in Portugal who deals in scandium metal and scandium oxide. He doesn't just deal in them, he does most of the dealing in them (60% or so) that is done worldwide. Oddly, I don't have any pure scandium from him, but rather a couple of rare earths he happened to have on the side. You can contact him through www.timworstall.com: If you're an industrial user or producer of scandium and you need someone to broker your scandium oxide transactions, see Tim.

My role in this article now reduced to linkman, that brings us back to the adage of the product selling itself. Something else becomes appparent – he's not just a salesman but a lyrical salesman. Observe this prose on his beloved scandium:

I was pleased to see that he loaded up a picture of the Smith and Wesson 329 PD revolver.

In order to make this delightful machine, scandium oxide was gently harvested from the sandy shores of the northern Caspian Sea in Kazakhstan. Carefully separated from the output of a uranium processing plant, the material was purified and then left to mature for several years.

Then, following the strict instructions of our buyers, it was flown in majesterial aloofness to Moscow, where it was carefully blended with high purity aluminium from Krasnoyarsk [none better!] in Siberia. Following the blending it was super chilled and then flown on the world's leading metal transport airline, KLM, via Rotterdam, to Pittsburgh.

Where someone else made it into a gun.

Gently harvested from the sandy shores of the northern Caspian Sea? He should be writing. And so:

Tim Worstall's entertaining new anthology of web writers, 2005 – Blogged #, puts the best into a book, says Rafael Behr [Sunday December 4, 2005 The Observer]. On paper it’s a terrible idea: let every have-a-go writer on the planet publish whatever they fancy and give it all away free. No editors, no agents, no fees, no quality control. But a new generation of diarists, satirists, polemicists and poets have made the idea work, precisely because they dispensed with paper. They are bloggers, their medium is the internet and there are around 19 million of them worldwide; 300,000 or so in the UK.

Rafael Behr continues: Worstall is an expat businessman based in Portugal. He is also a prolific blogger, with a libertarian bent, who is on a self-appointed mission to eviscerate every newspaper article that he judges guilty of economic illiteracy. He is not, however, exclusively hostile to old media, nor immune to the charms of ink on paper. He must be at least ambivalent about olde worlde recognition or he would not have published anything so Luddite as a book. But therein lies a contradiction in much political blogging: it rather depends on the very thing it likes ostentatiously to scorn.

Tim's views and again, where to start? With the man himself, of course. When I asked him how he would describe himself politically, his long-winded reply was: Classical Liberal. DK adds: Tim Worstall is that rare thing: a free marketeer who actually puts his beliefs into practice, and I raise a glass to his ambition!

I wondered at this point what he would do if he were actually the PM and whom his cabinet would comprise. His curt rejoinder: Cabinet? Government? No one's ever going to let me anywhere near the reins of power. Chris Dillow at DTI for sure, he'd close it down, just like I would.

So, not much further in ths direction. Nothing for it now but to plunge into his own writing and seek the grail that way. This snippet is as good as any to start with:

We actually want to abolish the taxation of retained profits altogether. This is, after all, what a company uses to reinvest. Tax dividends as income, fine, tax capital gains (although more on that later) but retained profits? Shouldn’t be taxed at all. Actually, there’s interesting evidence that even corporation tax, at least in part, is actually paid by the workers in the form of lower wages.

Indeed a free marketeer as pure as the driven scandium oxide: If we are to hold the world to the standard being demanded here we would never have anything new ever again.

Yes but is the man green to boot?

TCS Daily, 23 February 2006 HYPERLINK http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022206I http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022206I Tim Worstall

"Sir Humphrey?"

"Yes Minister?"

"Have you seen this report in The Times today? They say that mineral water is contributing to climate change...here, have a read:

Despite its pure image, bottled water is making a significant contribution to climate change. The industry produces as much greenhouse gas as the electricity consumption of about 20,000 homes in a year, according to research by The Times.

Further, from James K. Glassman’s Technology-Commerce-Society Daily:

The American Prospect's Ezra Klein … says: "I'm of the opinion that how to handle WalMart is among the two or three most important issues facing the country."

He's right you know. Whether we handle WalMart and the attendant issues as intelligent adults, capable of reasoning, or we do so as whining three-year-olds with all the attendant knowledge of incentives, utopian wishes and economic consequences such a three-year-old might possess is, indeed, one of the important questions facing the country.

WalMart, yes, subject of more pieces from my own pen than I can shake a devastated community at. Don’t get me started on WalMart, particularly in Canada. So, Tim writes internationally, publishes books and blogs on a daily basis. The lyrical, the witty and the droll. How about the cutting comment and incisive thrust?

Neal Lawson: Idiot by Tim Worstall August 10, 2006, 3:46 am

Sigh, It is certainly not a Labour response, as markets create winners and losers. That's their function.How is it possible that this idiot is in fact part of the political conversation in the UK?

Not bad at all and did you notice the time on the post? This might very well mean local time but one wonders if he was up half the night on this stuff. But this is to get too far ahead. How did he actually get into blogging in the first place? Journalism.co has one possible explanation:

While McGinty left journalism to build his mini-blog empire, Tim Worstall took the opposite tack.

The British blogger, based in Portugal, started blogging in April, 2004 to get into journalism. He thinks his editorial appeal is straightforward, "Some editors like to have something from a froth-mouthed libertarian."

Worstall believes that "in the future [media] is going to be more biased, that it will throw off any pretension to objectivity and I think it will be all the better for that."

He specialises in opinion, witty commentary and columnist bating. He is the driving force behind 2005: Blogged.

Worstall's output puts many freelances to shame. He is paid to blog for EQSQ. He also writes for Social Affairs Unit, the Globalization Institute, the Adam Smith Institue, TCS Daily and occasionally for The Times, Daily Telegraph and the Philadelphia Inquirer, "I'm now making, month by month, in the $4,000/$5,000 range purely from writing. That's better than if I were actually employed somewhere as a staffer," said Worstall.

He also uses the controversial PayPerPost service. The service pays bloggers to write about subjects using certain keywords, although he keeps this seperate from his main blog.

"I like to try the various things out there being offered to bloggers. So I tried this. I did it and reported on it. In one sense that's actually real journalism, isn't it? Why I continue it is purely for cash: but then that was my motivation in starting to write anyway."

He believes blogging is compatible with a 9 to 5 job, "Blogging takes two or a bit more hours a day. About the time most people spend watching television which is something I don't do. Writing for pay is different, in that it does take much more time, but then that has become my job in a way anyway."

However, it's just a case of blog and sell. "I did bang on a few doors to try and get noticed, but it was the fact that I was blogging at such length that got me hired at all. Being able to point to some output is a lot better than saying 'well, I know no one's hired me yet but I really can do some interesting stuff you know!' In a sense, the blog acted (and still does) as a clippings file, even if in the beginning it was all blog posts rather than clippings."

A blog evangelist he may be, but Worstall is also a realist, "Salary sum earning bloggers will remain very thin on the ground. People who use blogging as an advertising tool, a practice ground, to get freelance work in the regular media, as I have done, will be a much more common form. I don't think brand names or editorial teams are going to go away, but those who write for such might come from a wider pool."

Madcap schemes, altruistic ends, high adventure:

We’re actually going to take money from that nice Mr. Google and then send it on to places where it will help.

The thing is that Google wants, very much, to promote two of their services. Firefox with the Google Toolbar and Adsense itself. And they’ll pay me to do that. Money which can be sent to parts of the world where it will bring rather more cheer than if I simply drank it (not, whatever you might have heard, quite what the Christmas Spirit is usually defined as).
The terms are:

When a user you've referred to AdSense first earns US $100, we'll credit your AdSense account with US X. When a user you’ve referred to Firefox plus Google Toolbar runs Firefox for the first time, you’ll receive up to $Y in your account, depending on the user’s location. (Apologies, I’m not sure, under the Adsense rules, whether I’m allowed to tell you how much each referral earns. You’ll find out as soon as you get an account anyway.) So what will the money be spent on? Two things.

1) Ethiopiad and the Fistula Hospital in Addis Abbaba. Please do click through to find out what it’s all about. For those of you would like a more personal view of the good work done there might I suggest Owen Barder? He knows the hospital from his time in that country.50% of whatever Google pays will go to this charity.

2) We’re going to send Sortapundit to Outer Mongolia. Of huge value to civilisation in general, I’m sure you’ll agree (although less perhaps for the descendents of the Great Khan). However, we’re not going to be paying for his trip. He has entered the Mongol Rally and he can buy his own car and petrol and so on.

No, rather, we’re going to help him raise the sponsorship amount he needs to be able to enter the rally. This money goes to Send A Cow. As I say, he’s got to raise the money to have the fun himself. We’re going to help pay for cows to go to some of the poorest families in Africa. 50% raised will go to this similarly worthy cause. Both admirable causes I hope you will agree?

He’s also widely read and I recall the earlier comment by DK about Tim’s avid early morning readathons. He puts in more links and quotes more people than I’ve had hot dinners:

Mr Kleiman. Quite probably the shortest destruction of the new EU Constitution possible, even if that's not what the comment was aimed at:

The reason that the American Revolution created a republic that has done so well for so long, while the French and Russian revolutions degenerated so quickly into tyranny, was that the American Framers didn't try to create a government capable of doing great good in the hands of brilliant and well-intentioned people.

Instead, they tried to create a government that couldn't do too much to ruin the country in the hands of a bunch of corrupt morons. And they did a pretty good job of it. [Jordan Peterson]

Hates the EU, does Tim. Hence his Europhile perspective comment in his blogheader. But you’d be wrong to think Tim Worstall was anchored to economics or scandium. This piece took me aback:

Dimebag was a guitarist with a band called Pantera (who they are is a subject for another day) and had just gone back on the road (see how this cultish language of the rock and roll lifestyle seems to slip off the tongue so effortlessly!) with a new beat combo known as Damageplan.

Sadly, while performing their music hall turn (what I believe is known as a "gig") in a colonial ville called "Columbus, Ohio" on Dec 9 this year a member of the audience decided to shoot him four times as he performed before said assailant was himself shot by the police.

Sorry – I’m not providing the link for this classic piece. You’ll have to rummage around TW’s blogs for yourself and like the proverbial cellar, you might be quite surprised at what you turn up there. To wind this thing up, I’d like to return to two people who know him well enough. First of all, Chris Dillow:

An assessment of Tim? I really like him, both as a person and as a blogger. I could quibble (and did so in my last post) over several issues - but these are second-order [considerations].

And DK?

As Tim's tentacles of influence spread throughout the world [and they do] and his various spheres of interest, one can only anticipate that he will continue to make his arguments as forcefully, lucidly and with as much good humour as he always has [and did throughout the immensely enjoyable week that I spent with him].

But we’re not quite finished with him yet. DK e-mailed me [and I’ve already been in trouble once today for revealing the contents of e-mails but in this situation I stand by the decision] with the quite reasonable question: Is this just a blogger profiling thing that you are doing for yourself (as it were)?

My reply, if you’re interested, was: If you mean is there an ulterior motive - not that I know of. I just wanted to do it really. Tim's been good to me and I just thought there might be a few readers of the non-UK variety who might like a more rounded picture of him.

We always profile stars but I feel the A and B list bloggers are the stars today - people do read them and they do influence opinion. Therefore they deserve to be profiled. If someone wants to take the piece and use it somehow, well, that's OK because provided the profile was good, it can only be added hits for the guy profiled.

At least, that's my logic.

One last thing and I’m sure Chris Dillow and countless others would agree, that along with Clive Davis, this man is one of the ‘blogfathers’, to utilize a DK term and one of the more extraordinary characters to cross our paths in a long, long while.


# 2005 Blogged: Dispatches from the Blogosphere [Paperback] by Tim Worstall, 224 pages, Publisher: The Friday Project Limited (18 Nov 2005), Language English, ISBN: 0954831837

Форум Вероники

Здравствуйте, это Вероника. Сегодняшний топик:

Многие студенты сталкиваются с проблемой совмещения учебы, работы и своей личной жизни. Считаете ли вы, что это большая проблема? И как вы справляетесь с ней? Оставляйте свои комментарии внизу. Будут они на русском или на английском - не важно.

Full transcript of 1995 Diana Spencer interview

PRINCESS DIANA SPEAKS OUT

This is a transcript of the interview with the Princess of Wales provided by the BBC. Parts of it will air on ABC-TV on Friday, Nov. 24, 1995

QUESTION: Your Royal Highness, how prepared were you for the pressures that came with marrying into the Royal Family?

DIANA: At the age of 19, you always think you're prepared for everything, and you think you have the knowledge of what's coming ahead. But although I was daunted at the prospect at the time, I felt I had the support of my husband-to-be.

QUESTION: What were the expectations that you had for married life?

DIANA: I think like any marriage, specially when you've had divorced parents like myself, you'd want to try even harder to make it work and you don't want to fall back into a pattern that you've seen happen in your own family.
I desperately wanted it to work, I desperately loved my husband and I wanted to share everything together, and I thought that we were a very good team.

QUESTION: How aware were you of the significance of what had happened to you? After all, you'd become Princess of Wales, ultimately with a view to becoming Queen.

DIANA: I wasn't daunted, and am not daunted by the responsibilities that that role creates. It was a challenge, it is a challenge.
As for becoming Queen, it's, it was never at the forefront of my mind when I married my husband: it was a long way off that thought.
The most daunting aspect was the media attention, because my husband and I, we were told when we got engaged that the media would go quietly, and it didn't; and then when we were married they said it would go quietly and it didn't; and then it started to focus very much on me, and I seemed to be on the front of a newspaper every single day, which is an isolating experience, and the higher the media put you, place you, is the bigger the drop.
And I was very aware of that.

QUESTION: How did you handle the transition from being Lady Diana Spencer to the most photographed, the most talked-about, woman in the world?

DIANA: Well, it took a long time to understand why people were so interested in me, but I assumed it was because my husband had done a lot of wonderful work leading up to our marriage and our relationship.
But then I, during the years you see yourself as a good product that sits on a shelf and sells well, and people make a lot of money out of you.

QUESTION: It's been suggested in some newspapers that you were left largely to cope with your new status on your own. Do you feel that was your experience?

DIANA: Yes I do, on reflection. But then here was a situation which hadn't ever happened before in history, in the sense that the media were everywhere, and here was a fairy story that everybody wanted to work.
And so it was, it was isolating, but it was also a situation where you couldn't indulge in feeling sorry for yourself: you had to either sink or swim. And you had to learn that very fast.

QUESTION: And what did you do?

DIANA: I swam. We went to Alice Springs, to Australia, and we went and did a walkabout, and I said to my husband: `What do I do now?'
And he said, `Go over to the other side and speak to them.' I said, `I can't, I just can't.'
He said, `Well, you've got to do it.' And he went off and did his bit, and I went off and did my bit. It practically finished me off there and then, and I suddenly realised - I went back to our hotel room and realised the impact that, you know, I had to sort myself out.
We had a six-week tour - four weeks in Australia and two weeks in New Zealand - and by the end, when we flew back from New Zealand, I was a different person. I realised the sense of duty, the level of intensity of interest, and the demanding role I now found myself in.

QUESTION: Were you overwhelmed by the pressure from people initially?

DIANA: Yes, I was very daunted because as far as I was concerned I was a fat, chubby, 20-year-old, 21-year-old, and I couldn't understand the level of interest.

QUESTION: At this early stage, would you say that you were happily married?

DIANA: Very much so. But, the pressure on us both as a couple with the media was phenomenal, and misunderstood by a great many people.
We'd be going round Australia, for instance, and all you could hear was, oh, she's on the other side. Now, if you're a man, like my husband a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks. And you feel low about it, instead of feeling happy and sharing it.

QUESTION: When you say `she's on the other side', what do you mean?

DIANA: Well, they weren't on the right side to wave at me or to touch me.

QUESTION: So they were expressing a preference even then for you rather than your husband?

DIANA: Yes - which I felt very uncomfortable with, and I felt it was unfair, because I wanted to share.

QUESTION: But were you flattered by the media attention particularly?

DIANA: No, not particularly, because with the media attention came a lot of jealousy, a great deal of complicated situations arose because of that.

QUESTION: At this early stage in your marriage, what role did you see for yourself as Princess of Wales? Did you have an idea of the role that you might like to fulfil?

DIANA: No, I was very confused by which area I should go into. Then I found myself being more and more involved with people who were rejected by society - with, I'd say, drug addicts, alcoholism, battered this, battered that - and I found an affinity there.
And I respected very much the honesty I found on that level with people I met, because in hospices, for instance, when people are dying they're much more open and more vulnerable, and much more real than other people. And I appreciated that.

QUESTION: Had the Palace given any thought to the role that you might have as Princess of Wales?

DIANA: No, no one sat me down with a piece of paper and said: `This is what is expected of you.' But there again, I'm lucky enough in the fact that I have found my role, and I'm very conscious of it, and I love being with people.

QUESTION: So you very much created the role that you would pursue for yourself really? That was what you did?

DIANA: I think so. I remember when I used to sit on hospital beds and hold people's hands, people used to be sort of shocked because they said they'd never seen this before, and to me it was quite a normal thing to do.
And when I saw the reassurance that an action like that gave, I did it everywhere, and will always do that.

QUESTION: It wasn't long after the wedding before you became pregnant. What was your reaction when you learnt that the child was a boy?

DIANA: Enormous relief. I felt the whole country was in labour with me. Enormous relief.
But I had actually known William was going to be a boy, because the scan had shown it, so it caused no surprise.

QUESTION: Had you always wanted to have a family?

DIANA: Yes, I came from a family where there were four of us, so we had enormous fun there.
And then William and Harry arrived - fortunately two boys, it would have been a little tricky if it had been two girls - but that in itself brings the responsibilities of bringing them up, William's future being as it is, and Harry like a form of a back-up in that aspect.

QUESTION: How did the rest of the Royal Family react when they learnt that the child that you were to have was going to be a boy?

DIANA: Well, everybody was thrilled to bits. It had been quite a difficult pregnancy - I hadn't been very well throughout it - so by the time William arrived it was a great relief because it was all peaceful again, and I was well for a time.
Then I was unwell with post-natal depression, which no one ever discusses, post-natal depression, you have to read about it afterwards, and that in itself was a bit of a difficult time. You'd wake up in the morning feeling you didn't want to get out of bed, you felt misunderstood, and just very, very low in yourself.

QUESTION: Was this completely out of character for you?

DIANA: Yes, very much so. I never had had a depression in my life.
But then when I analysed it I could see that the changes I'd made in the last year had all caught up with me, and my body had said: `We want a rest.'

QUESTION: So what treatment did you actually receive?
DIANA: I received a great deal of treatment, but I knew in myself that actually what I needed was space and time to adapt to all the different roles that had come my way. I knew I could do it, but I needed people to be patient and give me the space to do it.

QUESTION: When you say all of the different roles that had come your way, what do you mean?

DIANA: Well, it was a very short space of time: in the space of a year my whole life had changed, turned upside down, and it had its wonderful moments, but it also had challenging moments. And I could see where the rough edges needed to be smoothed.

QUESTION: What was the family's reaction to your post-natal depression?

DIANA: Well maybe I was the first person ever to be in this family who ever had a depression or was ever openly tearful. And obviously that was daunting, because if you've never seen it before how do you support it?

QUESTION: What effect did the depression have on your marriage?

DIANA: Well, it gave everybody a wonderful new label - Diana's unstable and Diana's mentally unbalanced. And unfortunately that seems to have stuck on and off over the years.

QUESTION: Are you saying that that label stuck within your marriage?

DIANA: I think people used it and it stuck, yes.

QUESTION: According to press reports, it was suggested that it was around this time things became so difficult that you actually tried to injure yourself.

DIANA: Mmm. When no one listens to you, or you feel no one's listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen.
For instance you have so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt yourself on the outside because you want help, but it's the wrong help you're asking for. People see it as crying wolf or attention-seeking, and they think because you're in the media all the time you've got enough attention, inverted commas.
But I was actually crying out because I wanted to get better in order to go forward and continue my duty and my role as wife, mother, Princess of Wales.
So yes, I did inflict upon myself. I didn't like myself, I was ashamed because I couldn't cope with the pressures.

QUESTION: What did you actually do?

DIANA: Well, I just hurt my arms and my legs; and I work in environments now where I see women doing similar things and I'm able to understand completely where they're coming from.

QUESTION: What was your husband's reaction to this, when you began to injure yourself in this way?

DIANA: Well, I didn't actually always do it in front of him. But obviously anyone who loves someone would be very concerned about it.

QUESTION: Did he understand what was behind the physical act of hurting yourself, do you think?

DIANA: No, but then not many people would have taken the time to see that.

QUESTION: Were you able to admit that you were in fact unwell, or did you feel compelled simply to carry on performing as the Princess of Wales?

DIANA: I felt compelled to perform. Well, when I say perform, I was compelled to go out and do my engagements and not let people down and support them and love them.
And in a way by being out in public they supported me, although they weren't aware just how much healing they were giving me, and it carried me through.

QUESTION: But did you feel that you had to maintain the public image of a successful Princess of Wales?

DIANA: Yes I did, yes I did.

QUESTION: The depression was resolved, as you say, but it was subsequently reported that you suffered bulimia. Is that true?

DIANA: Yes, I did. I had bulimia for a number of years. And that's like a secret disease.
You inflict it upon yourself because your self-esteem is at a low ebb, and you don't think you're worthy or valuable. You fill your stomach up four or five times a day - some do it more - and it gives you a feeling of comfort.
It's like having a pair of arms around you, but it's temporarily, temporary. Then you're disgusted at the bloatedness of your stomach, and then you bring it all up again.
And it's a repetitive pattern which is very destructive to yourself.

QUESTION: How often would you do that on a daily basis?

DIANA: Depends on the pressures going on. If I'd been on what I call an awayday, or I'd been up part of the country all day, I'd come home feeling pretty empty, because my engagements at that time would be to do with people dying, people very sick, people's marriage problems, and I'd come home and it would be very difficult to know how to comfort myself having been comforting lots of other people, so it would be a regular pattern to jump into the fridge.
It was a symptom of what was going on in my marriage.
I was crying out for help, but giving the wrong signals, and people were using my bulimia as a coat on a hanger: they decided that was the problem - Diana was unstable.

QUESTION: Instead of looking behind the symptom at the cause.

DIANA: Uh,uh.

QUESTION: What was the cause?

DIANA: The cause was the situation where my husband and I had to keep everything together because we didn't want to disappoint the public, and yet obviously there was a lot of anxiety going on within our four walls.

QUESTION: Do you mean between the two of you?

DIANA: Uh,uh.

QUESTION: And so you subjected yourself to this phase of bingeing and vomiting?

DIANA: You could say the word subjected, but it was my escape mechanism, and it worked, for me, at that time.

QUESTION: Did you seek help from any other members of the Royal Family?

DIANA: No. You, you have to know that when you have bulimia you're very ashamed of yourself and you hate yourself, so - and people think you're wasting food - so you don't discuss it with people.
And the thing about bulimia is your weight always stays the same, whereas with anorexia you visibly shrink. So you can pretend the whole way through. There's no proof.

QUESTION: When you say people would think you were wasting food, did anybody suggest that to you?

DIANA: Oh yes, a number of times.

QUESTION: What was said?

DIANA: Well, it was just, `I suppose you're going to waste that food later on?' And that was pressure in itself. And of course I would, because it was my release valve.

QUESTION: How long did this bulimia go on for?

DIANA: A long time, a long time. But I'm free of it now.

QUESTION: Two years, three years?

DIANA: Mmm. A little bit more than that.

QUESTION: According to reports in the national press, it was at around this time that you began to experience difficulties in your marriage, in your relationship to the Prince of Wales. Is that true?

DIANA: Well, we were a newly-married couple, so obviously we had those pressures too, and we had the media, who were completely fascinated by everything we did.
And it was difficult to share that load, because I was the one who was always pitched out front, whether it was my clothes, what I said, what my hair was doing, everything - which was a pretty dull subject, actually, and it's been exhausted over the years - when actually what we wanted to be, what we wanted supported was our work, and as a team.

QUESTION: What effect did the press interest in you have on your marriage?

DIANA: It made it very difficult, because for a situation where it was a couple working in the same job - we got out the same car, we shook the same hand, my husband did the speeches, I did the handshaking - so basically we were a married couple doing the same job, which is very difficult for anyone, and more so if you ve got all the attention on you.
We struggled a bit with it, it was very difficult; and then my husband decided that we do separate engagements, which was a bit sad for me, because I quite liked the company.
But, there again, I didn't have the choice.

QUESTION: So it wasn't at your request that you did that on your own?

DIANA: Not at all, no.

QUESTION: The biography of the Prince of Wales written by Jonathan Dimbleby, which as you know was published last year, suggested that you and your husband had very different outlooks, very different interests. Would you agree with that?

DIANA: No. I think we had a great deal of interest - we both liked people, both liked country life, both loved children, work in the cancer field, work in hospices.
But I was portrayed in the media at that time, if I remember rightly, as someone, because I hadn't passed any O-levels and taken any A-levels, I was stupid.
And I made the grave mistake once of saying to a child I was thick as a plank, in order to ease the child's nervousness, which it did. But that headline went all round the world, and I rather regret saying it.

QUESTION: The Prince of Wales, in the biography, is described as a great thinker, a man with a tremendous range of interests. What did he think of your interests?

DIANA: Well, I don't think I was allowed to have any. I think that I've always been the 18-year-old girl he got engaged to, so I don't think I've been given any credit for growth. And, my goodness, I've had to grow.

QUESTION: Explain what you mean when you say that.

DIANA: Well, er...

QUESTION: When you say, when you say you were never given any credit, what do you mean?

DIANA: Well anything good I ever did nobody ever said a thing, never said, `well done', or `was it OK?' But if I tripped up, which invariably I did, because I was new at the game, a ton of bricks came down on me.

QUESTION: How did you cope with that?

DIANA: Well obviously there were lots of tears, and one could dive into the bulimia, into escape.

QUESTION: Some people would find that difficult to believe, that you were left so much to cope on your own, and that the description you give suggests that your relationship with your husband was not very good even at that early stage.

DIANA: Well, we had unique pressures put upon us, and we both tried our hardest to cover them up, but obviously it wasn't to be.

QUESTION: Around 1986, again according to the biography written by Jonathan Dimbleby about your husband, he says that your husband renewed his relationship with Mrs Camilla Parker-Bowles. Were you aware of that?

DIANA: Yes I was, but I wasn't in a position to do anything about it.

QUESTION: What evidence did you have that their relationship was continuing even though you were married?

DIANA: Oh, a woman's instinct is a very good one.

QUESTION: Is that all?

DIANA: Well, I had, obviously I had knowledge of it.

QUESTION: From staff?

DIANA: Well, from people who minded and cared about our marriage, yes.

QUESTION: What effect did that have on you?

DIANA: Pretty devastating. Rampant bulimia, if you can have rampant bulimia, and just a feeling of being no good at anything and being useless and hopeless and failed in every direction.

QUESTION: And with a husband who was having a relationship with somebody else?

DIANA: With a husband who loved someone else, yes.

QUESTION: You really thought that?

DIANA: Uh,uh. I didn't think that, I knew it.

QUESTION: How did you know it?

DIANA: By the change of behavioural pattern in my husband; for all sorts of reasons that a woman's instinct produces; you just know.
It was already difficult, but it became increasingly difficult.

QUESTION: In the practical sense, how did it become difficult?

DIANA: Well, people were - when I say people I mean friends, on my husband's side - were indicating that I was again unstable, sick, and should be put in a home of some sort in order to get better. I was almost an embarrassment.

QUESTION: Do you think he really thought that?

DIANA: Well, there's no better way to dismantle a personality than to isolate it.

QUESTION: So you were isolated?

DIANA: Uh,uh, very much so.

QUESTION: Do you think Mrs Parker-Bowles was a factor in the breakdown of your marriage?

DIANA: Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.

QUESTION: You're effectively living separate lives, yet in public there's this appearance of this happily married royal couple. How was this regarded by the Royal Family?

DIANA: I think everybody was very anxious because they could see there were complications but didn't want to interfere, but were there, made it known that they were there if required.

QUESTION: Do you think it was accepted that one could live effectively two lives - one in private and one in public?

DIANA: No, because again the media was very interested about our set-up, inverted commas; when we went abroad we had separate apartments, albeit we were on the same floor, so of course that was leaked, and that caused complications.
But Charles and I had our duty to perform, and that was paramount.

QUESTION: So in a sense you coped with this, these two lives, because of your duty?

DIANA: Uh,uh. And we were a very good team in public; albeit what was going on in private, we were a good team.

QUESTION: Some people would find that difficult to reconcile.

DIANA: Well, that's their problem. I know what it felt like.

QUESTION: The Queen described 1992 as her `annus horribilis', and it was in that year that Andrew Morton's book about you was published. Did you ever meet Andrew Morton or personally help him with the book?

DIANA: I never met him, no.

QUESTION: Did you ever personally assist him with the writing of his book?

DIANA: A lot of people saw the distress that my life was in, and they felt it was a supportive thing to help in the way that they did.

QUESTION: Did you allow your friends, your close friends, to speak to Andrew Morton?

DIANA: Yes, I did. Yes, I did.

QUESTION: Why?

DIANA: I was at the end of my tether. I was desperate.
I think I was so fed up with being seen as someone who was a basket-case, because I am a very strong person and I know that causes complications in the system that I live in.

QUESTION: How would a book change that?

DIANA: I don't know. Maybe people have a better understanding, maybe there's a lot of women out there who suffer on the same level but in a different environment, who are unable to stand up for themselves because their self-esteem is cut into two. I don't know.

QUESTION: What effect do you think the book had on your husband and the Royal Family?

DIANA: I think they were shocked and horrified and very disappointed.

QUESTION: Can you understand why?

DIANA: I think Mr Dimbleby's book was a shock to a lot of people and disappointment as well.

QUESTION: What effect did Andrew Morton's book have on your relationship with the Prince of Wales?

DIANA: Well, what had been hidden - or rather what we thought had been hidden - then became out in the open and was spoken about on a daily basis, and the pressure was for us to sort ourselves out in some way.
Were we going to stay together or were we going to separate? And the word separation and divorce kept coming up in the media on a daily basis.

QUESTION: What happened after the book was published?

DIANA: Well, we struggled along. We did our engagements together. And in our private life it was obviously turbulent.

QUESTION: Did things come to a head?

DIANA: Yes, slowly, yes. My husband and I, we discussed it very calmly.
We could see what the public were requiring. They wanted clarity of a situation that was obviously becoming intolerable.

QUESTION: So what happened?

DIANA: So we got the lawyers together, we discussed separation - obviously there were a lot of people to discuss it with: the Prime Minister, Her Majesty - and then it moved itself, so to speak.

QUESTION: By the December of that year, as you say, you'd agreed to a legal separation. What were your feelings at the time?

DIANA: Deep, deep, profound sadness. Because we had struggled to keep it going, but obviously we'd both run out of steam.
And in a way I suppose it could have been a relief for us both that we'd finally made our minds up. But my husband asked for the separation and I supported it.

QUESTION: It was not your idea?

DIANA: No. Not at all. I come from a divorced background, and I didn't want to go into that one again.

QUESTION: What happened next?

DIANA: We, I asked my husband if we could put the announcement out before the children came back from school for Christmas holidays because they were protected in the school they were at.
And he did that, and it came out on December 9th. I was on an engagement up north.
I heard it on the radio, and it was just very, very sad. Really sad. The fairy tale had come to an end, and most importantly our marriage had taken a turn, different turn.

QUESTION: Did you tell your children that you were going to separate?

DIANA: Yes. I went down a week beforehand, and explained to them what was happening.
And they took it as children do - lots of questions - and I hoped I was able to reassure them. But, who knows?

QUESTION: What effect do you think the announcement had on them?

DIANA: I think the announcement had a huge effect on me and Charles, really, and the children were very much out of it, in the sense that they were tucked away at school.

QUESTION: Once the separation had occurred, moving to 1993, what happened during that period?

DIANA: People's agendas changed overnight. I was now separated wife of the Prince of Wales, I was a problem, I was a liability (seen as), and how are we going to deal with her? This hasn't happened before.

QUESTION: Who was asking those questions?

DIANA: People around me, people in this environment, and ...

QUESTION: The royal household?

DIANA: People in my environment, yes, yes.

QUESTION: And they began to see you as a problem?

DIANA: Yes, very much so, uh,uh.

QUESTION: How did that show itself?

DIANA: By visits abroad being blocked, by things that had come naturally my way being stopped, letters going, that got lost, and various things.

QUESTION: So despite the fact that your interest was always to continue with your duties, you found that your duties were being held from you?

DIANA: Yes. Everything changed after we separated, and life became very difficult then for me.

QUESTION: Who was behind that change?

DIANA: Well, my husband's side were very busy stopping me.

QUESTION: What was your reaction when news broke of allegedly a telephone conversation between you and Mr James Gilbey having been recorded?

DIANA: I felt very protective about James because he'd been a very good friend to me and was a very good friend to me, and I couldn't bear that his life was going to be messed up because he had the connection with me.
And that worried me. I'm very protective about my friends.

QUESTION: Did you have the alleged telephone conversation?

DIANA: Yes we did, absolutely we did. Yup, we did.

QUESTION: On that tape, Mr Gilbey expresses his affection for you. Was that transcript accurate?

DIANA: Yes. I mean he is a very affectionate person.
But the implications of that conversation were that we'd had an adulterous relationship, which was not true.

QUESTION: Have you any idea how that conversation came to be published in the national press?

DIANA: No, but it was done to harm me in a serious manner, and that was the first time I'd experienced what it was like to be outside the net, so to speak, and not be in the family.

QUESTION: What do you think the purpose was behind it?

DIANA: It was to make the public change their attitude towards me.
It was, you know, if we are going to divorce, my husband would hold more cards than I would - it was very much a poker game, chess game.

QUESTION: There were also a series of telephone calls which allegedly were made by you to a Mr Oliver Hoare. Did you make what were described as nuisance phone calls?

DIANA: I was reputed to have made 300 telephone calls in a very short space of time which, bearing in mind my lifestyle at that time, made me a very busy lady.
No, I didn't, I didn't.
But that again was a huge move to discredit me, and very nearly did me in, the injustice of it, because I did my own homework on that subject, and consequently found out that a young boy had done most of them.
But I read that I'd done them all. Mr Hoare told me that his lines were being tapped by the local police station. He said, you know, don't ring. So I didn't, but somebody clearly did.

QUESTION: Had you made any of those calls at all?

DIANA: I used to, yes, I had rung up, yes.

QUESTION: Once, twice, three times?

DIANA: I don't know. Over a period of six to nine months, a few times, but certainly not in an obsessive manner, no.

QUESTION: Do you really believe that a campaign was being waged against you?

DIANA: Yes I did, absolutely, yeah.

QUESTION: Why?

DIANA: I was the separated wife of the Prince of Wales, I was a problem, fullstop. Never happened before, what do we do with her?

QUESTION: Can't we pack her off to somewhere quietly rather than campaign against her?

DIANA: She won't go quietly, that's the problem. I'll fight to the end, because I believe that I have a role to fulfil, and I've got two children to bring up.

QUESTION: By the end of 1993 you had suffered persistent difficulties with the press - these phone conversations were made public - and you decided to withdraw from public life. Why did you do that?

DIANA: The pressure was intolerable then, and my job, my work was being affected.
I wanted to give 110% to my work, and I could only give 50. I was constantly tired, exhausted, because the pressure was just, it was so cruel.
So I thought the only way to do it was to stand up and make a speech and extract myself before I started disappointing and not carrying out my work.
It was my decision to make that speech because I owed it to the public to say that, you know, `thank you. I'm disappearing for a bit, but I'll come back.'

QUESTION: It wasn't very long before you did come back, of course.

DIANA: Well, I don't know. I mean, I did a lot of work, well, underground, without any media attention, so I never really stopped doing it.
I just didn't do every day out and about, I just couldn't do it.
You know, the campaign at that point was being successful, but it did surprise the people who were causing the grief - it did surprise them when I took myself out of the game.
They hadn't expected that. And I'm a great believer that you should always confuse the enemy.

QUESTION: Who was the enemy?

DIANA: Well, the enemy was my husband's department, because I always got more publicity, my work was more, was discussed much more than him.
And, you know, from that point of view I understand it. But I was doing good things, and I wanted to good things. I was never going to hurt anyone, I was never going to let anyone down.

QUESTION: But you really believe that it was out of jealousy that they wanted to undermine you?
DIANA: I think it was out of fear, because here was a strong woman doing her bit, and where was she getting her strength from to continue?
QUESTION: What was your reaction to your husband's disclosure to Jonathan Dimbleby that he had in fact committed adultery?

DIANA: Well, I was totally unaware of the content of the book, and actually saw it on the news that night that it had come out, and my first concern was to the children, because they were able to understand what was coming out, and I wanted to protect them.
But I was pretty devastated myself. But then I admired the honesty, because it takes a lot to do that.

QUESTION: In what sense?

DIANA: Well, to be honest about a relationship with someone else, in his position - that's quite something.

QUESTION: How did you handle this with the children?

DIANA: I went to the school and put it to William, particularly, that if you find someone you love in life you must hang on to it and look after it, and if you were lucky enough to find someone who loved you then one must protect it.
William asked me what had been going on, and could I answer his questions, which I did.
He said, was that the reason why our marriage had broken up?
And I said, well, there were three of us in this marriage, and the pressure of the media was another factor, so the two together were very difficult.
But although I still loved Papa I couldn't live under the same roof as him, and likewise with him.

QUESTION: What effect do you think it had on Prince William?
DIANA: Well, he's a child that's a deep thinker, and we don't know for a few years how it's gone in. But I put it in gently, without resentment or any anger.

QUESTION: Looking back now, do you feel at all responsible for the difficulties in your marriage?

DIANA: Mmm. I take full responsibility, I take some responsibility that our marriage went the way it did. I'll take half of it, but I won't take any more than that, because it takes two to get in this situation.

QUESTION: But you do bear some of the responsibility?

DIANA: Absolutely, we both made mistakes.

QUESTION: Another book that was published recently concerned a Mr James Hewitt, in which he claimed to have had a very close relationship with you, from about 1989 I think. What was the nature of your relationship?

DIANA: He was a great friend of mine at a very difficult, yet another difficult time, and he was always there to support me, and I was absolutely devastated when this book appeared, because I trusted him, and because, again, I worried about the reaction on my children.
And, yes, there was factual evidence in the book, but a lot of it was, comes from another world, didn't equate to what happened.

QUESTION: What do you mean?

DIANA: Well, there was a lot of fantasy in that book, and it was very distressing for me that a friend of mine, who I had trusted, made money out of me. I really minded about that.
And he'd rung me up 10 days before it arrived in the bookshops to tell me that there was nothing to worry about, and I believed him, stupidly.
And then when it did arrive the first thing I did was rush down to talk to my children. And William produced a box of chocolates and said, `Mummy, I think you've been hurt. These are to make you smile again.' So...

QUESTION: Did your relationship go beyond a close friendship?

DIANA: Yes it did, yes.

QUESTION: Were you unfaithful?

DIANA: Yes, I adored him. Yes, I was in love with him. But I was very let down.

QUESTION: How would you describe your life now? You do live very much on your own, don't you?

DIANA: Yes, I don't mind that actually. You know, people think that at the end of the day a man is the only answer. Actually, a fulfilling job is better for me. (LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: What do you mean by that?

DIANA: Well, I mean any gentleman that's been past my door, we've instantly been put together in the media and all hell's broken loose, so that's been very tough on the male friends I've had, and obviously from my point of view.

QUESTION: Does that mean that you feel that for the rest of your life you'll have to be on your own?

DIANA: No, I'm not really on my own. I've got wonderful friends, I've got my boys, I've got my work.
It's just by living at Kensington Palace obviously it is a little bit isolating, but, you know, maybe we all feel like that.

QUESTION: How do you feel about the way the press behaves towards you now?

DIANA: I still to this day find the interest daunting and phenomenal, because I actually don't like being the centre of attention.
When I have my public duties, I understand that when I get out the car I'm being photographed, but actually it's now when I go out of my door, my front door, I'm being photographed.
I never know where a lens is going to be.
A normal day would be followed by four cars; a normal day would come back to my car and find six freelance photographers jumping around me.
Some people would say, Well, if you had a policeman it would make it easier. It doesn't at all.
They've decided that I'm still a product, after 15, 16 years, that sells well, and they all shout at me, telling me that: `Oh, come on, Di, look up. If you give us a picture I can get my children to a better school.'
And, you know, you can laugh it off. But you get that the whole time. It's quite difficult.

QUESTION: Some people would say that in the early years of your marriage you were partly responsible for encouraging the press interest - you danced with people like Wayne Sleep, you seemed to enjoy it, you had a very good and warm relationship.
Do you feel any responsibility for the way the press have behaved towards you?

DIANA: I've never encouraged the media. There was a relationship which worked before, but now I can't tolerate it because it's become abusive and it's harassment.
But I don't want to be seen to be indulging in self-pity. I'm not.
I understand they have a job to do. You could equate it to a soap opera really. It goes on and on and on, and the story never changes.
And each time one enjoys oneself - albeit it's in a different situation - you have to pay for it, because people criticise, which comes with the patch, as I said previously.
But I am a free spirit - unfortunately for some.

QUESTION: But here at Kensington Palace, are you isolated?

DIANA: Well I am by the nature of my situation, yes, but I don't feel sorry for myself in any way.
I've got my work that I choose to do, and I've got my boys, and I've got lots of opportunities coming up in the next year - visits abroad: I'm about to go to Argentina, which I'm very happy with, and hope very much to continue the good relationship that's now been adopted between the two countries. I hope I can be of help there.

QUESTION: What role do you see for yourself in the future?

DIANA: I'd like to be an ambassador for this country. I'd like to represent this country abroad.
As I have all this media interest, let's not just sit in this country and be battered by it. Let's take them, these people, out to represent this country and the good qualities of it abroad.
When I go abroad we've got 60 to 90 photographers, just from this country, coming with me, so let's use it in a productive way, to help this country.

QUESTION: You say you feel that your future is as some form of ambassador. At whose behest is that? On what grounds do you feel that you have the right to think of yourself as an ambassador.

DIANA: I've been in a privileged position for 15 years. I've got tremendous knowledge about people and how to communicate. I've learnt that, I've got it, and I want to use it.
And when I look at people in public life, I'm not a political animal but I think the biggest disease this world suffers from in this day and age is the disease of people feeling unloved, and I know that I can give love for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, for a month, but I can give - I'm very happy to do that and I want to do that.

QUESTION: Do you think that the British people are happy with you in your role?

DIANA: I think the British people need someone in public life to give affection, to make them feel important, to support them, to give them light in their dark tunnels.
I see it as a possibly unique role, and yes, I've had difficulties, as everybody has witnessed over the years, but let's now use the knowledge I've gathered to help other people in distress.

QUESTION: Do you think you can?

DIANA: I know I can, I know I can, yes.

QUESTION: Up until you came into this family, the monarchy seemed to enjoy an unquestioned position at the heart of British life. Do you feel that you're at all to blame for the fact that survival of the monarchy is now a question that people are asking?

DIANA: No, I don't feel blame. I mean, once or twice I've heard people say to me that, you know, `Diana's out to destroy the monarchy', which has bewildered me, because why would I want to destroy something that is my children's future.
I will fight for my children on any level in order for them to be happy and have peace of mind and carry out their duties.
But I think what concerns me most of all about how people discuss the monarchy is they become indifferent, and I think that is a problem, and I think that should be sorted out, yes.

QUESTION: When you say indifferent, what do you mean?

DIANA: They don't care. People don't care any more. They've been so force-fed with marital problems, whatever, whatever, whatever, that they're fed up.
I'm fed up of reading about it. I'm in it, so God knows what people out there must think.

QUESTION: Do you think the monarchy needs to adapt and to change in order to survive?

DIANA: I understand that change is frightening for people, especially if there's nothing to go to. It's best to stay where you are. I understand that.
But I do think that there are a few things that could change, that would alleviate this doubt, and sometimes complicated relationship between monarchy and public. I think they could walk hand in hand, as opposed to be so distant.

QUESTION: What are you doing to try and effect some kind of change?

DIANA: Well, with William and Harry, for instance, I take them round homelessness projects, I ve taken William and Harry to people dying of Aids - albeit I told them it was cancer - I ve taken the children to all sorts of areas where I'm not sure anyone of that age in this family has been before.
And they have a knowledge - they may never use it, but the seed is there, and I hope it will grow because knowledge is power.

QUESTION: What are you hoping that that experience for your children - what impact that experience will have on your children?

DIANA: I want them to have an understanding of people's emotions, people's insecurities, people's distress, and people's hopes and dreams.

QUESTION: What kind of monarchy do you anticipate?

DIANA: I would like a monarchy that has more contact with its people - and I don't mean by riding round bicycles and things like that, but just having a more in-depth understanding.
And I don't say that as a criticism to the present monarchy: I just say that as what I see and hear and feel on a daily basis in the role I have chosen for myself.

QUESTION: There's a lot of discussion at the moment about how matters between yourself and the Prince of Wales will be resolved. There's even the suggestion of a divorce between you. What are your thoughts about that?

DIANA: I don't want a divorce, but obviously we need clarity on a situation that has been of enormous discussion over the last three years in particular.
So all I say to that is that I await my husband's decision of which way we are all going to go.

QUESTION: If he wished a divorce to go through, would you accept that?

DIANA: I would obviously discuss it with him, but up to date neither of us has discussed this subject, though the rest of the world seems to have.

QUESTION: Would it be your wish to divorce?

DIANA: No, it's not my wish.

QUESTION: Why? Wouldn't that resolve matters?

DIANA: Why would it resolve matters?

QUESTION: It would provide the clarity that you talk about, it would resolve matters as far as the public are concerned perhaps.

DIANA: Yes, but what about the children? Our boys - that's what matters, isn't it?

QUESTION: Do you think you will ever be Queen?

DIANA: No, I don't, no.

QUESTION: Why do you think that?

DIANA: I'd like to be a queen of people's hearts, in people's hearts, but I don't see myself being Queen of this country. I don't think many people will want me to be Queen.
Actually, when I say many people I mean the establishment that I married into, because they have decided that I'm a non-starter.

QUESTION: Why do you think they've decided that?

DIANA: Because I do things differently, because I don't go by a rule book, because I lead from the heart, not the head, and albeit that's got me into trouble in my work, I understand that. But someone's got to go out there and love people and show it.

QUESTION: Do you think that because of the way you behave that's precluded you effectively from becoming Queen?

DIANA: Yes, well not precluded me. I wouldn't say that. I just don't think I have as many supporters in that environment as I did.

QUESTION: You mean within the Royal Household?

DIANA: Uh,uh. They see me as a threat of some kind, and I'm here to do good: I'm not a destructive person.

QUESTION: Why do they see you as a threat?

DIANA: I think every strong woman in history has had to walk down a similar path, and I think it's the strength that causes the confusion and the fear.
Why is she strong? Where does she get it from? Where is she taking it?
Where is she going to use it? Why do the public still support her? When I say public, you go and do an engagement and there's a great many people there.

QUESTION: Do you think the Prince of Wales will ever be King?

DIANA: I don't think any of us know the answer to that. And obviously it's a question that's in everybody's head. But who knows, who knows what fate will produce, who knows what circumstances will provoke?

QUESTION: But you would know him better than most people. Do you think he would wish to be King?

DIANA: There was always conflict on that subject with him when we discussed it, and I understood that conflict, because it's a very demanding role, being Prince of Wales, but it's an equally more demanding role being King.
And being Prince of Wales produces more freedom now, and being King would be a little bit more suffocating. And because I know the character I would think that the top job, as I call it, would bring enormous limitations to him, and I don't know whether he could adapt to that.

QUESTION: Do you think it would make more sense in the light of the marital difficulties that you and the Prince of Wales have had if the position of monarch passed directly to your son Prince William?

DIANA: Well, then you have to see that William's very young at the moment, so do you want a burden like that to be put on his shoulders at such an age? So I can't answer that question.

QUESTION: Would it be your wish that when Prince William comes of age that he were to succeed the Queen rather than the current Prince of Wales?

DIANA: My wish is that my husband finds peace of mind, and from that follows others things, yes.

QUESTION: Why have you decided to give this interview now? Why have you decided to speak at this time?

DIANA: Because we will have been separated three years this December, and the perception that has been given of me for the last three years has been very confusing, turbulent, and in some areas I'm sure many, many people doubt me.
And I want to reassure all those people who have loved me and supported me throughout the last 15 years that I'd never let them down. That is a priority to me, along with my children.

QUESTION: And so you feel that by speaking out in this way you'll be able to reassure the people?

DIANA: Uh,uh. The people that matter to me - the man on the street, yup, because that's what matters more than anything else.

QUESTION: Some people might think - some people might interpret this as you simply taking the opportunity to get your own back on your husband.

DIANA: I don't sit here with resentment: I sit here with sadness because a marriage hasn't worked.
I sit here with hope because there's a future ahead, a future for my husband, a future for myself and a future for the monarchy.

QUESTION: Your Royal Highness, thank you.

Princess Diana’s interview with the BBC, 1995

[sunday roundup] around the blogs

Chris Dillow argues on political parties and their necessity:

1. They restrict debate. Parties reduce our political choices to a tiny range of (similar) options.
2. They debase debate.
3. They perpetuate the myth that hierarchy is the only feasible organizational form
He concludes: I reckon these bads outweigh any external benefits.

Clive Davis has an endearing piece on Brian Vine:

Straight out of a Waugh novel... The Telegraph's obituary of Fleet Street irregular, Brian Vine:
A rotund, Wodehousian figure with a booming voice and rubicund complexion, "Vino", as Vine was known to his colleagues, wore Savile Row suits, sported a monocle ("for opthalmic reasons", though the glass was obviously plain) and conveyed the general impression of being an escapee from the dustier benches of the Upper House...

Cllr Gavin Ayling states what many believe:

Jeremy Clarkson makes the licence fee worth complaining about less. He regular says “Due to the unique way the BBC is funded…” which is enough for me: I’m already laughing without knowing which punchline or reason for his outburst.

Iain Dale has his usual blockbuster about Tony Blair [and it’s not for me here to spoil it]:

Mr Blair joined Rebekah Wade, editor of The Sun and a close friend of [Matthew] Freud, for a cosy supper at Cecconi's restaurant in Mayfair. Seems there was far more than met the eye.

Devil’s Kitchen has a proposal for fellow bloggers:

Following Tom Paine's comment, I suddenly thought that a weekly Swearblogger Roundup might be quite fun. Perhaps do it on a Saturday evening to get a link from the Britblog Roundup?

Dymphna’s partner, the Baron, on their very slow loading blog, says:

Russia is the most reliable partner of the Islamic world and most faithful defender of its interests, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Chechnya’s capital Grozny.

Johnathan Pearce writes of Iain Dale’s 18 Doughty Street:

I wish these guys all the very best of luck in breaking the lock of the mainstream media on broadcast television in Britain and political coverage in particular. I am not sure if this outfit is going to feature a lot in my viewing habits, though.

Melanie Phillips, in her peerless manner, cuts to the chase:

lan Dershowitz and others have recently suggested that Iran should be ejected from the United Nations. This seems to me to be the wrong way round. All civilised countries should now eject themselves from the UN.

Minette Marrin’s post is now a little old but she says:

It is often said that the more you learn about something, the more right wing you come to feel about it. That may not always be so but it seems to be true of the monarchy, judging from Stephen Frears’s dazzling new film about the Queen.

Mr Eugenides exposes the access for money scandal:

Exclusive access to Cabinet ministers and other senior Labour politicans is being offered for thousands of pounds at next week’s party conference.

Norman Geras, as usual, is right on the pulse of the nation with:

So while I wouldn't care to say which is the best album ever recorded by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, the one I'd take to a desert island is Moanin'. Norman, in this blogger’s humble opinion, has life’s priorities all sorted out.

Oliver Kamm this week got into John Pilger:

Yet Pilger’s documentaries are full of falsehoods. They operate by misdirection, simultaneously denouncing one form of injustice while ignoring or denying others.

The Pedant-General is in rip-roaring form just now:

Blears on the party of Government wanting to dip its hands into the pot specifically marked for funding of opposition parties: it’s what the people want [or some such]. His reaction is predictable and unmissable.

Reactionary Snob gets down to the seamier side of the government and I warn you – you need a strong stomach for this:

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse (see the Devil's Carnival of Hazel kicking) it turns out the Labour Cabinet intend to pimp themselves for a few more pennies.

Serf has his Open Letter to John Reid, of course:

We downtrodden Serfs, are watching with trepidation as members of her majesty’s Government are meeting with their counterparts in Brussels. It is being reported that our government, will be asked to give up veto power over issues of justice.

Tim Worstall gives a very long list of quangoes and asks:

So, which ones should we simply abolish? Arts Council, Equality Commission, Department of Trade and Industry, Regional Assemblies (which aren't necessarily on this list), sure we know they have to go.

Vox is not doing so much posting of late and refers to the NFL:

I was speaking to a publisher this week when I learned the funniest news I've heard in a long time. It seems a certain NFL star will soon be publishing a children's book, one dedicated to the worthwhile topic of teaching children how to share.

All the others are either away, not posting or celebrating Jewish New Year. Have a pleasant Sunday, go to it rightly and may scallops rock your tadger.

Late note: Stephen Pollard's back and is writing about Dalrymple's critique of Gove:

Dalrymple also shows that he doesn't even get the very basis of his attack on Gove right: None of this would matter if Gove were still ring-fenced within his op-ed-page padded cell; horrifyingly, however, he now sits in the Conservative shadow cabinet... Would that he did. Michael Gove is shadow Housing Spokesman.