Shy Di to Princess Nervosa

The book describes Diana and Burrell moving furniture, rolling up carpets, unscrewing the floorboard in search of bugging devices: ‘‘She was acting on sound information received from someone who had worked for the British intelligence services — a man whose expertise, advice and friendship the princess came to rely on.’’

Burrell writes Diana predicted her death in an ‘‘arranged’’ car accident. Mohammed Al Fayed, Dodi’s dad, must have placed bulk orders for A Royal Duty. He’s been crying murder for aeons now, pointing stubby fingers at the same ‘‘anti-Arab’’ British ‘‘Establishment’’ Burrell says Diana so distrusted.

Whatever happened to the Shy Di of 1981, the teenaged girl — certified a virgin, as per palace protocol — who seemed so endearing when she got her husband’s full name all mixed up as they exchanged vows before a worldwide audience?

Actually, very little happened to her; she remained just where she was. The world expected her to grow into a public role and grow up as a private person. She accomplished the first with aplomb but the second was a non-starter.

Till the end, she remained a bundle of insecurities, a profoundly bad judge of men, betrayed by a cad she wrote letters to her every day while he was away during Gulf War I, chased by parvenus of every description.

It is tempting to speculate what Diana would have turned out like were she still around. She would probably have become some sort of female Bill Clinton — strictly without the intellectual rigour — as an iconic rallying figure for the trendy left, the limousine liberals if you like. She would probably have been out on the streets, marching in protest against the war in Iraq.

Diana’s fame proved fatal, literally some would say. As history’s most photographed royal, she, paradoxically, was also responsible for stripping British royalty of whatever mystique remained.

In the AD (After Diana) era, the blokes at the Palace are just another fixture on the celebrity circuit, a little below Victoria and David Beckham and somewhere above Arun Nayar.

In India — where, over the past week, the dominant reaction to the Prince of Wales’ unending visit was a befuddled ‘‘He’s still here?’’ — life has moved on too. Fame is no longer a function of memory. It’s a strange animal, one that requires Prince Charles and Ponty Chaddha to compete for the same space on page 3.

Aristocracy has been democratised, some would say made commonplace. That was Diana’s lasting achievement. Not bad for a woman who married well — and divorced better.