Witness box to soap box

Minus one at 8am. A stunning golden sunrise this morning with the merest stirrings of a wind. I miss my babies!

At London's famous Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, it's traditional for anyone who so desires to set up their soap box and hold forth on whatever subject is excerising them, in whatever language they choose and to an audience of one-man-and-his-dog or to a chanting crowd of thousands, depending on his oratorical skills and the vitality of the subject.

At Speaker's Corner, you're allowed to say, with a loud hailer if you want, anything. Anything at all. With only two exceptions. You're not allowed to incite a riot or racial hatred. And you're not allowed to defame the Royal Family. This is because Speaker's Corner is in one of the Royal Parks and it would be "jest too beastly to have people trampling all over one's roses and calling one names too boot." Or so I was told by the bobby on duty the day I was sent to cover "anything that may be going on" for a postgrad course in photojournalism.

It goes without saying that Speaker's Corner attracts its fair share of harmless nutters.

Yesterday, Mohamed Al-Fayed, the richest paranoiac in Britain, had his day in court. And it seems that, unlike at Speaker's Corner, you can say whatever you like about the Royal Family in a British court of law. I once saw Al-Fayed call the Duke of Edinburgh a "f***ing Nazi b*****d in a live tv interview - the no-name afternoon-tv journalist-on-the-spot nearly fainted, poor girl. And so I was sure that sparks would be flying when he appeared at the Diana-Dodi inquest. And he didn't disappoint by all accounts. He called the Queen's consort a "Nazi" and a "racist". He claimed Prince Philip and Prince Charles were involved in the murder of Diana and Dodi because Diana was pregnant and the monarchy couldn't bear to see her married to Al-Fayed's son and carrying a 'forrin' baby.

Sad, isn't it? A man of such advanced age and with successes in business of almost heroic proportions, reduced to name-calling (and with such execrable English grammar). Where's the evidence? Where are the witnesses to support the allegations? Where's this man's dignity!

Now I hate to see a person robbed of a child. I can sympathise with Al-Fayed's grief over the death of his son. But why do I have a niggling suspicion that he's more upset that his scheme to have his son seduce the Princess of Wales was scuppered? That he's more bitter that the couple's deaths thwarted his grand plan to take revenge on an Establishment that continued to cold-shoulder him despite his gazillions?

Perhaps when this battle is finally over, Mr Al-Fayed might consider spending his Sundays on a soap box in Hyde Park. I'm sure one-man-and-his-dog and a shifty-looking girl with a Nikon would be happy to listen. But he should watch what he says in front of the man in the funny blue hat - Marylebone cop-shop is mere steps away.