DIANA: In Pursuit of Love

This is the title of yet another book on Diana churned out by Andrew Morton (his fourth, and another to come). It was reviewed in the Sunday Times this week by a writer I usually find rather dislikeable, but here he crisply described what the book seems to be about: “…an unedifying crew of flakes, clowns, bastards and outright nutters… the assorted flunkies, therapists, masseurs, astrologers and counsellors…”. The Spencer family "…seems uniformly swinish” and Diana herself “...appears as an unattractive cocktail of paranoia, whinging, infantilism and idiocy, and the less said about her parade of fabulously dumb boyfriends the better”.

Of course, that’s not how Morton sees them, but then he’s been making a very good living out of them all for some years now so it’s understandable that he takes an indulgent view.

But he deserves our gratitude for reminding us of the existence of the acupuncturist and former nun Oonagh Shanley-Toffolo; no need to read the book to enjoy knowing about her. Shelley Ackerman, former singing waitress and caster of Bill Clinton’s horoscope, wrote a piece about this “Royal Medicine Woman” in the New York Daily News in 2002. It seems that Oonagh has led a full life, having tended the Duke of Windsor and been present at his death, while Prince William aged 7 or 8 “requested of his mom” to meet her and impressed her by being psychic. Shelley apparently “personally levitated off the table after being ‘needled’ by her”.

This drivel is headed by a photo of Oonagh and Diana, identified as (l.) and (r.) in case we couldn’t tell which was which.