Letter: Diana: memorial ideas, grief without tears, media manipulation

Sir: Exaggeration wrought to the uttermost, a nation in caricature. A royal family so out of touch, they can't fly a flag at half-mast; the national media which would never let her live and now won't let her die, and at last, this exquisite compromise from (where else?) the Church of England, advising wedding couples this Saturday to let the bells ring, but muffled. It is beyond satire.

And the most poignant irony of all is, of course, that so many of the Princess's mourners are the very people who contributed to her death by purchasing the papers that paid the paparazzi.

Is it still too early to venture a rational suggestion: that there is a difference between what is in the public interest and what interests the public and that the difference is not so subtle as to elude the powers of legislation? Would not a single Privacy Act on the Statute Book commemorate Diana's name more wisely, if less warmly, than all the words recorded in books of condolence the length and breadth of the country?

CHRISTOPHER THOMSON

Cambridge