Well to express a very different point of view ...

People need celebrities, figureheads, hero(ine)s ... and this fascination with the famous, inspired both the constant media chase to which Diana was subjected, and the global communal mourning which followed her death.

Diana represents not just an individual, but a symbol, someone who (for good or ill) the whole world knows perhaps more intimately than anyone else has ever been known. In an age of instant global communication, of intensely personal videorecordings and photographs, voice recordings, public interviews, mass-distributed biographies - we watched her courtship, marriage, pregnancies, childrearing, marriage breakdown, divorce, and subsequent emotional recovery - with greater detail than most of us know our own families. Whether you feel this is good or bad, Diana represents many mythic figures - the "fairy tale princess" - the "perfect woman" - the "devoted mother" - the "betrayed and broken-hearted wife" - the "great humanitarian". Those who mourn Diana, mourn especially what she represents - a woman taken in the prime of her life, her future stolen, forever unable to fulfill her own potential.

This is why Mother Teresa's death, sad though it be, is not as tragic as Diana's: Mother Teresa was 87; Diana was 36.

As for Elton John's song, imagine trying to compose something to be performed for millions of people - in a matter of a very few days - when you are grief-stricken by the untimely, unexpected death of a close friend. I think he did remarkably well. And I find the analogies to Marilyn Monroe, not offensive but touching. Both were children from troubled homes, with insecure self-images, who were catapulted at an early age into a fame and stardom they were not prepared for; and who died before their time, of the consequences of their own fame. (Read Gloria Steinem's biography of Marilyn Monroe, for a very sympathetic analysis of a complex and troubled woman).

Yes I watched Diana's funeral, beginning to end. And while I can certainly understand those of you to whom it meant nothing - may I suggest that you at least consider the possibility - that there was something there, that you have missed.