Prior to Mohamad al-Fayed's sensational appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice this week, with his sober critiques and totally non-insane, honest-to-Gawd guaranteed truthful claims of murder most foul, the hitherto dull proceedings of the Diana Inquiry have been enlivened by John Loughrey.
Mr. Loughrey describes himself as "Diana's Number One fan", and in living proof of his dedication to what is clearly a hotly contested title, he has attended every single sodding day of the glacially slow inquest since it crawled into town last September. Despite never meeting Diana during her lifetime, he believes that the two made a "spiritual connection" when Mr. Loughrey visited the floral tribute at Kensington Palace in 1997, where apparently the hand of the dead princess rested (metaphorically we assume) on his shoulder. At that time he took the bright decision to scrawl the names of Diana and Dodi on his face, a move which hasn't quashed the suspicion that our man might be a few flashbulbs short of a paparazzi scrum.
Sadly, worshiping at the slender feet of Diana's memory doesn't as yet bring the pecunious rewards it surely deserves, and Mr.Loughrey has been forced to rent out his Earlsfield house to fund his long-running vigil. However, he has diligently collected a number of autographed tickets, which may be worth something in the future as valuable mementos from the biggest waste of taxpayer money in history.
What most concerns Londonist, however, is Mr. Loughrey's spooky resemblance to Lost regular Benjamin Linus, aka the leader of the 'Others'. That guy gives us the willies, no joke.
Pic of the Royal Courts of Justice from Edward B.'s Flickrstream
