As we begin the months-long pre-publicity tour for Tina Brown's forthcoming biography of Princess Diana, expect that knives that have long lain dormant for Brown—why stab someone so intent upon doing it themselves (see "Topic A")—to receive a fresh sharpening. In a piece on The First Post, British hack Charles Laurence calls out the The Tina for, uh, selling out Diana, whose royal ass she used to kiss.

While admitting that Diana was, in fact, "a vain, scheming, immature arch-manipulator who brought misery to all around her, including the Royals and her own sons," Laurence seems upset with Brown for having the gall to write a book saying just that. Is there some sort of English complexity we're missing here?

And we're not sure who exactly is shocked to "learn" that Tina Brown will trample on the grave of someone she once pretended to be friendly with (or was!) in the pursuit of her own ambitions (and Laurence suggests that those ambitions are essentially publicity and college funds for the kids)—but if you've never heard of either Tina Brown or poor Diana Spencer before, this may be the perfect primer for the drama about to slowly, dully unfold. Also: Vanity Fair excerpt soon!

Tina tells it like it was [The First Page]