This inquest has not been without its moments, I admit. The way that Princess Diana’s soft, flicky blonde hair gleamed in the flashbulbs like a priceless gold helmet under a museum spotlight has been very thought-provoking - in the sense that it made me wonder for ages whether the princess had a blow-dry. Or a wash and a blow-dry, and, if so, what kind of conditioner was used?

The footage of the princess and Dodi Fayed in the lift was also revelatory, in the sense that one really did get the whiff of intimacy from the couple, so far as one can tell from 10-year-old grainy CCTV footage, anyway. I wouldn’t go so far to say that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other in public (no need to shout “get a room” at Dodi, the man with the whole Paris Ritz in his gift), but they were close and affectionate.

But otherwise, it’s left me cold. And everyone else I know. Ten years after she died, we are all bored and irritated by the fact that the insatiable grief and limitless funds of one bereaved father can hold a whole country to ransom like this. Please, I want to howl as I see yet another front-page blurry photograph of the princess shielding her beautiful face from the paparazzi, can’t we all move on, a little?

I was as soppy about Diana as anyone else when she was alive, and boasted about the one time I glimpsed her across a crowded room at the Brazilian ambassador’s for years on end.

When she died, I felt hollow, numb, as if I had lost someone close to me. I was in Washington DC on the day of Diana’s funeral and I don’t mind admitting that I got up at 3am - or so I recall – to watch it in full, hour after hour, until the flower-strewn cortege had reached the gates of Althorp and I had no tears left to cry.

But now, we’ve all seen the images of Dodi and Diana leaving that revolving door repeated ad nauseam, after the princess has changed from her linen suit and blouse into white trousers, loafers and blazer, that we could scream.

Diana was a blonde icon whose death shocked the world, like Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly, but there is, in her case, a limit to the mystique, for one simple reason: as the longest and most expensive investigations into a road traffic incident in any jurisdiction have both concluded, one in the UK and one in France, Diana’s death was a tragic accident and all allegations of conspiracy made since her death are without foundation.

End of story.

There is another sad sign that Diana-fatigue, despite the best efforts of newspapers such as the Daily Express, whose older female readers love Diana as their own, is growing.

The public marquee at the Royal Courts of Justice, where the inquest is being heard, was erected to house 150 slavering Dianaphiles and conspiracy theorists. It has given shelter to only a couple of dozen souls daily. The media pack covering the death of “the most hunted person of the modern age”, as her brother put it so bluntly at her funeral, has dwindled from 100 to a third of that.

One would think there would be more interest, given the fact that the list of 20 “likely issues” that Lord Justice Scott Baker is investigating is as loony as you like, from 1) whether driver error on the part of Henri Paul caused the collision (oooh, now that’s a tricky one), to 16) the circumstances in which the princess’s body was embalmed, to 20) those stolen letters between the princess and Prince Philip.

But interest seems to be limited to those who are paid to cover the story and their publications, the obsessives, the nuts and the ghouls.

I hardly believe I am typing these words, but for me, the inquest really came alive, really caught fire, when Posh rocked up at the Ritz. Victoria Beckham transparently left the Ritz’s main entrance in teetering heels and one of her skin-tight minidresses at the exact moment the jurors – attended by press, gendarmerie, and all the panoply of Her Majesty’s coroner – descended on the hotel en masse, in only the second overseas trip by an English jury.

It was a fabulous “the roi is dead, long live moi” moment but what was almost shocking about it was just how easily Posh – the skinny butt of so many unkind critics – stole the scene from Di.

Hate to say it, but when it comes to a living, breathing, publicity-hungry celebrity and an icon that has been in the grave 10 long years, there’s a genuine competition for our attention in these shallow times. And as for all those born after July 29, 1981 – well, I doubt they’ve given poor Princess Diana a second thought.

* * * * * * * *

I was walking past a resaurant where, lately (ie, this year) I had dinner with a friend. I sent her a text, thinking it would be nice to catch up.

"Got back after a month in New York this week," she replied within seconds, tersely (ie, ignoring the convention that e-mails and texts must come complete with snail trails of kisses and worse, emoticons). So I pinged one back saying, let’s have coffee. She didn’t reply.

I spent the day wondering whether I was off her Christmas card list . . . whether I had said something - in low-level anxiety, in other words.

That evening, I saw a well-known writer friend. We immediately started talking about the etiquette of time-sapping social networking sites and what to do when someone you don’t know, who you have no friends in common with, grimly wants to be your “Facebook friend”.

I said that I ignored them. He said he generally did likewise, but now he hesitated.

“When I declined this stranger, who had repeatedly asked to be my friend, he sent me all these messages saying things like, ‘Who are you, you twerp, who do you think you are, just because your book was a bestseller, you effing, snotty arsehole’.”

Gosh, I said, impressed. Then I realised that my own response to my own friend’s lack of response to my own text that morning was, in its way, just as toddlerish and disproportionate.

When we use instant methods of communication, we expect an instant response, and when we don’t get it, we don’t like it.

When we don’t reply to someone, it’s because we’re busy or we forgot. But when someone else forgets to reply to us, of course, it’s because they’re damned rude, or worse, they’re just not that into us. Boo hoo!

Between Facebook, and mobiles, and texting, and e-mails, there’s endless opportunity for upset. The more modes of communication there are, of course, the greater the scope for paranoia, and unintended insult.

On that note, cu nxt wk. Oops, I almost forgot. xxxx

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