HE'S a funny fish, Paul Burrell. When I met him, just over a year ago, he was in town to promote his latest book, The Way We Were, and had retired to a hotel to lick his wounds after an embarrassing book-signing where hardly anyone, other than a smattering of photographers, had turned up to see him.
He was affable and friendly, self-deprecating – "I wouldn't hang around for me," he said of the book-signing incident – and given to long, gossipy stories about his time with Diana, Princess of Wales, the Queen, and any other member of the Royal Fami
ly he could shoe-horn into an anecdote. In fact, the one thing I wouldn't have said about him was that he was secretive.
Which is why, other than adding a much-needed comic interlude to the long-running saga that is the inquest into the death of the princess, it amazes me that the former butler's appearance over the past two days has garnered so much excitement. What, exactly, did we expect to find out? That the princess cut her own toenails? That she was deeply in love with Noel Edmonds? That the Queen was actually an envoy from the planet Splorg with the ability to shoot marmalade out of her nostrils? Burrell is a man who has made a career out of his experiences with the princess. He has written two books on the subject, and appeared on several reality TV programmes. He's even launched his own wine range (white, red, and a sparkling rosé, apparently), all on the back of having what he describes as a "best friend" who was the most famous woman in the world.
Yesterday's farcical saga at the High Court, which saw Burrell "hotfoot" it to Cheshire and back to pick up a letter containing "a secret" that he now says is in his house in Florida, was classic Burrell. The fact that the "secret", which he had intimated to the judge in a letter, was in fact, not a secret at all but "fairly and squarely in the public domain" seemed typical of a man who has made a living from, I suspect, pretending to know more than he does.
One of the things that struck me most about Burrell when I met him was how much he seemed to dwell on the past. He was obsessed with the princess, still preoccupied with the life they'd lived at Kensington Palace, and spoke in long, over-romanticised sentences as if he were narrating a Catherine Cookson mini-series.
It made me feel a bit sorry for him. Whether he has exaggerated the closeness of his relationship with the princess or not we will probably never know, but in his head, it was, is, and will probably always be the most important one of his life, a point demonstrated during Monday's court hearing by the fact that he could not remember the date of his own wedding.
I asked Burrell when we met if he liked being famous. He admitted that walking into a strange place and being recognised was very flattering, but that "suddenly being a player on the stage is very difficult". He complained about not being able to go for a pint anymore, and at having lost his anonymity. I'm not so sure.
Perhaps Burrell is holding on to one final secret. If he is, I hope he keeps it. Because after more than ten years and two books, the best thing anyone could do for Paul Burrell is to simply stop listening.
These awards are a Brit more miss than hit IS IT just me or is the shortlist for the Brit Awards hideously boring? Leona Lewis, blah… Mika, blah… Take That, bleuch – it's not just that the names are utterly predictable, but the fact that their music is 100 per cent predictable pop as well.
With the cherry being that Sir Paul McCartney is to be awarded the lifetime achievement award (because he's never won one of those before) the entire set-up is more miss than Brit.
• DISAPPOINTING news from Belfast, where Liam Neeson says it is too early for a film of Ian Paisley's life, a role for which he had been tipped to play. What a shame: not only because of the joy to be had in wheeling out Paisley's best quotes (how many other politicians can you name who addressed the Pope as 'the Antichrist'?), but because the sight of Neeson working up that much phlegm for every scene would be worth the ticket price alone.
He's one in a million…WE ALWAYS knew Gordon Brown was unique, but now comes confirmation from an unlikely source – an artist searching for his lookalike. Alison Jackson, known for her celebrity mock-up photos, has spent six years looking in vain for someone who resembles the PM, blaming his "huge bovine features".
Perhaps she could draft in a Belted Galloway, or that cow from the Clover advert – although the chances of them producing a smile are significantly higher than the genuine article.
The full article contains 856 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
