Winter has come to Britain at last, although only in the north. Here in the south we continue to bask in warm spring sunshine.

No consolation there for sparky Chelsy Davy, whose hot South African blood must turn to ice at the thought of arctic weather in Leeds where she is studying for a Masters in Business Law.

Nothing daunted, on Monday she was seen gamely plodding her way to college through the white wintry landscape in a black outfit that set her apart from the snowy scene.

There is a lot of chatter now about how she’s helping boyfriend Prince Harry set up a 1000-mile motorbike challenge with Prince William down the length of Africa for his charity, Sentebale.

However, Harry is nowhere to be seen, and this may be a way of keeping his name in the public gaze while he performs his Army duties in the shade for a few months.

Chelsy certainly looks the part of a Nordic Ice Princess. What chance she eventually becomes a real one?

With Mohamed al Fayed taking the witness stand today at the Diana inquest, the European Court of Human Rights has thrown out his allegations about the deaths of Princess Diana and his son, Dodi. The judges in Strasbourg found no evidence of foul play, and will hand down a verdict that the cause of death was a simple road traffic accident. They said Al Fayed’s case was “manifestly ill-founded” and ruled it “inadmissible”.

This is the third major investigation into the crash, and each has reached the same conclusion. Given the overwhelming weight of evidence presented, it would be perverse if the inquest did not also reach a similar verdict in five weeks when, thankfully, this three-ring circus finally comes to an end.

So how will the man who has generated all this activity perform today? The consensus is that he may fight his corner quite well. When he took the witness stand in 1999 at Neil Hamilton’s libel action over claims that the former Conservative MP took cash and gifts from Al Fayed in exchange for asking questions in the House of Commons, the Harrod’s boss was said to have performed “brilliantly”.

However, the direction of travel of this inquest is so much against him that he may struggle with some of the most aggressive questioning yet as old scores are settled and his wild accusations regurgitated.

He will take the stand for two days. It would be gruelling for any 75-year-old, but he will reap a whirlwind of his own making.

Update: At the inquest, Mohamed al Fayed has called the Royal Family the “Dracula family” and Prince Philip a Nazi who should be sent back to Germany. He also implicated hundreds of people in the alleged “consipiracy” by accusing French police, security services and investigators, as well as the Metropolitan Police, the Royal Family and MI6. That would make it the biggest conspiracy in history.

Paul Burrell has been caught on tape by The Sun newspaper claiming he lied under oath at the inquest and threw in a lot of “red herrings”. Perjury is a very serious offence and the Coroner has called for a copy of the video.

Why is it that most of Diana’s friends appear to be complete nutcases?

We haven’t heard much news about Kate Middleton lately, so it’s interesting to hear she’s rather put out by Prince William’s proposed motorbike trip down Africa in June.

The idea, obscurely named Operation ER+Queen (something to do with Easy Rider and Steve McQueen), is that Princes William and Harry will bike 1000 miles down the length of Africa to Lesotho and South Africa in aid of Harry’s charity for African children.

Today’s Mail on Sunday has the following passage : “A friend of Harry’s said: ‘Chelsy has been helpful and encouraging about the trip.

‘She has travelled a lot in South Africa and hopes she and Harry might have some time together out there once he has completed the journey.

‘Kate Middleton, on the other hand, is rather put out by the whole thing.

‘She feels excluded because she can’t help in the same way Chelsy can and is annoyed William is choosing to spend some of his valuable leave away from her.’ ”

So there is some tension there. But this trip is so full of dangers, it may not happen.

With the Diana Inquest reaching a gripping conclusion and the imminent presence of Mohamed al Fayed expected on the stand, a dizzying array of witnesses are falling like ninepins.

Fayed’s head of security, John Macnamara, has admitted he lied over Henri Paul’s drinking on the night. He now confesses that he had two Ricards in the hotel and possibly much more when he went off duty for three hours.

Michael Cole, former Royal Correspondent of the BBC, now with Al Fayed, was completely tripped up by Lord Justice Scott Baker, the Coroner, when his testimony didn’t match what he had said in the days after the crash.

Lord Stevens, author of the British police report on the crash, has demanded an apology from the Al Fayed team for accusing him of “not doing his job”, and for having been “got at” by sinister forces.

A former spy, Richard Tomlinson, said the death was similar to one cooked up at MI6 for the former Communist leader of Serbia. Tomlinson later revealed that God had told him he was the “second coming of Jesus”.

No wonder the Coroner is getting increasingly irritated by the quality of testimony at the inquest.

Both bodyguards on the night have questioned the Fayed version of events, and Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell, was found to have made claims over evidence that were not true.

It seems Burrell has now been forced to shut down his website following his humiliating appearance at the inquest. He attracted so much “hate mail” that he decided to batten down the hatches.

A friend is reported as saying, “So many people have sent messages to the site criticising Paul that he’s had to take it down. It’s shocked him.”

Burrell admitted to copying Diana’s personal correspondence to preserve it for its “historical importance”. He subsequently used extracts for his best-selling books about life with the Princess.

With friends like these, no wonder Diana was all at sea in the last few months of her life.

Enough of the monkeys, we now await the organ grinder with barely suppressed anticipation.