I went to another of those Expat things last night, this time to the Ritz Hotel, which is latterly famous for being the place rincess Diana had her last meal, but which is one of those big, famous hotels like Raffles, the Savoy, the Waldorf Astoria, the Peninsular and all the rest of it. It's not that often I get to be glamorous these days, so I was quite looking forward to going.

Just like Raffles, it's a bit of a disappointment, frankly. Although the location (on Place Vendôme in the 1st) is perfect and the building is lovely, they've managed to spoil the place by doing things like having display cases full of overpriced crap from local boutiques along the corridors, presumably for the benefit of American tourists. It ruins the place.

There was one interesting comment from someone I was talking to, who said (although it's difficult to believe) that she was a bit of a geek at school in the US. She was saying that she thinks everyone has an age they suit, and how tragic it is for the people who are popular at high school, because their golden age is over by the time they're 19. "I may have been a geek at high school," she said, "but it's me that's having cocktails at the Ritz in Paris now, isn't it?"

The lowpoint of the evening was having to cough up ?20 for a gin and tonic, which smashes my personal best by quite some distance.

Speaking of Princess Di, I think that August 30th should be a national holiday in the UK to commemorate her death and recognise the enormous public show of emotion when she was so tragically taken from us.

They could call it "Di and Dodi died day".