Creep of the Week - September 6, 1997

More Assorted Diana-Related Creeps
"Grief, Denial, Anger, Paranoia"

• Henri Paul - Security guys always have that arrogant, belligerent air about them. Their appointed tasks are often ridiculously trivial, for example "Make sure everyone entering this bar is old enough to drink," but the sense of power they get from those tasks challenges their already limited intellectual ability. Henri Paul (pictured above), the driver of Diana's car, was a long-time security official at the Ritz Hotel, owned by Dodi Al Fayed's family, and evidently just an older, stupider version of that bar ID-checker. His blood showed a level of 1.87 grams of alcohol per liter of blood, nearly four times the legal limit in France. He also did not have a proper chauffeur's license. His obnoxious security-man greeting to the paparazzi outside the Hotel when he began the fateful drive was "Catch me if you can." Henri is gone now, presumably working as a bouncer at the gates of Hell.

• The Paparazzi - We've heard from a few of those who were arrested at the scene last week. They're obviously not in the public relations business. The aptly named Romuald Rat said he did not see the crash but came upon the accident only after it happened. Just taking a leisurely Saturday night drive through the streets of Paris with his camera and motorcycle. He didn't call for help because he thought someone else already had. He opened the car door only to take Diana's pulse. After help arrived, "I resumed my work as a journalist." Another photographer offering excuses was Jacques Langevin. Amazingly enough, he didn't participate in the chase either, but just happened to come upon the scene, along with The Rat, and began to "react instinctively," taking pictures from behind police lines. One member of this elite fraternity was willing to tell it like it was, albeit through an anonymous interview with an electronically altered voice; "Diana was (still) alive. She was still moving. OK, we took photos without thinking. What was I supposed to do? I'm neither a doctor nor a fireman. My job is to take photos." The sentiment is reprehensible. The candor is refreshing.

• The Al Fayed Family - They lost a son. Think they spent the week grieving? More like filing lawsuits and covering their tracks. Henri Paul was their employee. An incompetent drunk? Hardly. In a series of press conferences, where they sounded a lot like the pet shop owner in Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch, the message was "Henri wasn't drunk. Just a bit tipsy. What bloody blood tests? Never saw him take a drink. Wasn't stumbling. Didn't smell. He's Not Dead!" And back in the family's home country of Egypt, the real paranoia is spewing out. According to these imbeciles, the crash was engineered by the British right-wing who couldn't stand the thought of their future King's mother marrying a Muslim. Had Diana lived to marry into this family, she would have come to think of her ex-in-laws as Ozzie and Harriet.

• Walter Cronkite - He's the grandfather of TV journalists and the most trusted man in America. What does he think of those wild idiots who are besmirching his profession? "You know the paparazzi are getting a bum rap on this one. I think the fault here seems to me to clearly lie with the driver of that car." Walter's signature line used to be "That's the way it is!" I think it's time to change it to "That's the way it used to be before I became senile!"

• Elton John - Although Elton's performance at the funeral was magnificent and moving, I'm really pissed off at him for rewriting his song "Candle in the Wind", originally an ode to Marilyn Monroe. From now until the end of time (or until he gives the song away again) anyone who hears that song will get teary and see all those lovely pictures of Diana getting married and holding little William and looking beautiful. That's a wonderful tribute, but it leaves Marilyn without a song. She spent her life getting Rat-Packed and Cameloted, losing everything in the end, and now she's lost her song, as well. Good-bye, Norma Jean. I would have liked to know you, but I was just a kid.

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