Diana Memorial A Mess

Half a mile from here, in one of our Royal Parks, you can have a long distance look at the impressive memorial we've built to commemorate poor Princess Diana. She died, tragically, in 1997.

So it has taken seven long years to complete. In that time you'd reckon we'd get it right. You'd reckon wrong.

The Diana memorial was officially opened just the other day. Her Majesty the Queen did the honours. And the ceremony seemed to heal all those wounds - the messy divorce, the dreadful car crash.

They built her something very unusual. It is called a fountain, but is more like a stately water ride, a moving moat carved out of granite with fresh water gurgling down the middle.

The Queen declared it open. Everybody cheered. The Queen went home. The pump went bang. The fountain dried up. It has been opening & closing ever since.

It is probably the most unreliable memorial in the world. The idea was that people could paddle in it - children particularly. The Princess was so good with children.

But the memorial's architect hadn't bargained on a little trick of nature: if you pump fresh water round a granite moat, slimy green algae grows. If you paddle barefoot on slimy green algae, you'll probably fall over. Three people already have. Badly enough to get them hospitalised. So the Diana fountain is shut. Indefinitely.

It cost almost $7 million. The Princess herself might have regarded that as far too cheap. She, as we have just learned from the memoir of Prince Charles's banker, managed to extract a cool $32 million as a divorce settlement. He had to sell everything. So the Royal Park, like the poor Prince, can't risk expensive litigation every time a toddler tumbles. That's why they've fenced off the fountain.

The moral of this tale? That maybe memorials, like successful marriages, should only be made in heaven.

By Ed Boyle