Letter From London - The Deed is Done - Humorous Gossip from London

Money Making Madness Manifest - 3 July

Dear Lulu,

I thought it was time to Make Poverty History, but not everyone is cooperating. For some it’s Make Me More Money. Take Simone Simmons - please. Yet another of Diana’s inestimable best friends, healers, confidents, astrologers, who periodically climb out from under rocks. SS has removed herself from Diana’s “you’re a star” list by writing another revealing book on Diana, I-knew-her-better-than-you-did. As if hundreds of intimate, revealing, tell-all tomes are just not enough. It’s said that her first book didn’t make her enough money. Details of Diana’s orgasms surely will. And speaking of will, Wills is not happy - but who would be. Thinking about your parent(s) having sex produces a guaranteed wince-making “I don’t want to know” response. Having the world know the details requires a disguise, a new identity and preferably a safe-house.

William’s response to Diana’s treatment of Simmons: “She was very, very generous to her and this is how she repays her. It’s sick, totally sick.” Royal sources described William as initially angered, but then dissolved into tears of frustration.

Here’s a sampling so that you don’t have to buy the book for £17.99: she had sex with JFK Jr at the Carlyle Hotel and rated him a 10. She gave Charles a 1. She tried coke once, didn’t like it, thought it would kill her. She never had sex with Dodi. She was simply trying to wean him off coke. The palace demanded paternity tests for the heir and the spare as late as 1998; obviously without their knowledge. (Mind you a bit ironic if true considering the questionable male lineage regarding the fourth in line.) Was it Harry’s ginger hair or his genetic bypass of the Windsor hound-dog features. Picture helmet-coiffed Princess Anne. Oh - sorry. Hope you aren’t eating.

Regaled in royal purple head to toe, Simmons’ wide-eyed, slow-speaking reaction to probing questions: “I knew Diana.” Now that’s simplistically convincing. In February 1998, “Diana actually asked me to do it as I am very plain speaking…if anything ever happened to her, I was to tell the story like it was.” SS is still in contact and receives information from her ‘best friend’ Diana, but finds it difficult to talk about. But is it easy to write about? Please insure us there isn’t another book waiting in the wings, as it were. SS sold the serialised version of her newest book to a tabloid newspaper. She obviously hadn’t been paying proper attention to voices from the beyond, because she failed to include the liaison with JFK in her previous ‘plain-speaking’ book. Saving the best for last? SS has promised us that this is her final book on Diana. Thank you for small favours. Sources say that for the remaining two years of Diana’s life, her repeated pronouncement was: “Keep that woman away from me!”

“Why can’t these people just leave my mother alone? Have they no respect?” Obviously not, but they do have much bigger bank accounts now. Chuh-ching.

Putting a twist on ‘put your money where your mouth is’, Nigella “oh watch me lick this gooey, dark, richer chocolate off my lovely, sensuous fingers…mmm” Lawson, married to the endlessly deep-pocketed Charles Saatchi, had the cheek to go on one of the very daytime shows she specifically called rubbish, tosh, bland, ‘rivers of banality’, to promote her own food and this time chat show beginning in a few days. The hosts were gracious through cleverly clenched teeth, but were not about to be seduced by Nigella’s physical beauty, bodacious baroque body or her whispery “I am a sexual being, am I not?” voice. They did mention her critique as she whipped up what she is now calling her ‘hotcakes’. Lying through her perfectly, pearly white teeth, side-stepping the facts, a few awkward pauses prevailed. Integrity and character are not words that spring to mind, but avarice and bloody nerve are. She’s getting paid £100,000 per chat. (That’s a lot here.) She’s paying an unprecedented £2000 per famous guest per chat. (Talk shows rarely pay guests here.) That’s not all: goodie bags filled to bursting with luxury products chosen by Nigella herself, hand massages, all the food they can eat that she’ll so lovingly prepare. They will be “spoilt rotten” and given “full VIP treatment”. Why am I feeling a bit queasy? The line up of guests suffering from deprivation are: Sir Elton John, Jane Seymour, Brooke Shields, David Schwimmer. Lady Heather (“I’d never heard of the Beatles”) McCartney can’t be far behind. Those suffering from abject deprivation, the studio audience, will be plied with wine – not taking any chances, huh? – and ah - luxury prizes. What exactly is a luxury prize? Before I forget; domestic goddess Nigella is going to also play agony-aunt, dispensing guidance. Let’s see here. Rich and beautiful, with a whole international industry all to herself: TV shows, cookery books, the palest of tasteful blues bowls, and only god knows what other essential items we all think we need in life. Now this is someone an eight-month pregnant, homeless 12 year old could turn to for homely advice. “A lovely cheese soufflé always makes me feel better.” Is that Martha (Stewart) calling or suing? Chuh-ching.

When Charles isn’t answering all those nasty Camilla hate letters personally, hopefully holding his pen all by himself (like explaining why he and Camilla rushed into marital bliss before Sir John Stephen’s final account of the untoward death of Diana?), he is spending, spending, spending. He had a bumper profit of £13 million last year, up 11%. You’d have to sympathise: 135 full and part-time staff – his personal 30 at hand - all needing to be (under)paid. One butler is on duty 24 hours a day for all those butler sort of emergencies of which I can’t think of a single one, can you? And those regal valets are necessary to help him dress…tie his highly-polished shoes, comb his thinning hair, slide on his ring and squeeze the infamous toothpaste on the infamous royal toothbrush. He spent £1million of our non-royal money on his first-class royal travel. One bill for a private jet came to £300,000- a trip to Australia, £85,000 took him to Ronald Reagan’s funeral. And how crucial was that? Ronnie didn’t know that there was a royal family or that he was even dead. As the un-royal-we know, when not taking advantage of modern air travel, Charles spends an inordinate amount of time in the 19th century. In fact, all the royals went travel-mad at the taxpayers’ expense. Have chance, will travel…first class. That said - his organic food products, Duchy Originals, made £1 million for charity. Which puts him a bit above the rest as far as buttery biscuits are concerned. Chuh-ching.

TTFN, Maggie

Letters From London