For millions of Britons, after months of media speculation, the announcement came as no surprise. Inevitability did not soften the blow. It was delivered - as most tragic news is now - via their televisions. Together for so long, friends and confidants through unimaginable adversity, one was always destined to take the crown, the other to live life in that long, dark shadow - younger, and forever second best.

There was no softening the bleak announcement when it came: Gareth Gates had been defeated by Will Young in the final of ITV's Pop Idol by just 500,000 votes, 4.1 million to 4.6 million. It was the end of an era - at least until the next 18-week series.

Meanwhile, the other news that reached the nation last Saturday was of the death of Princess Margaret.

I knew something was wrong when I turned on the television early Sunday morning to see a solemn Jennie Bond doing her best Camilla Parker-Bowles impersonation - big blond hair, draped in diamonds, imperious. What on earth makes the BBC royal correspondent think that in order to report on the royal family one has to dress like them?

BBC reporters have clearly heeded Greg Dyke's recent edict that their royal coverage should be more critical. I don't think he meant for it also to be offensive, so why did his reporters repeatedly describe people outside Kensington Palace as "well-wishers"?

The extraordinary newspaper coverage that we witnessed of the death of a minor member of the royal family remains a peculiarly British tradition. If you buy the argument that a successful editor knows what his or her readers want, then add together the total number of column inches given over to the death of Princess Margaret in the national press, the only conclusion one can reach is that reports of the monarchy's demise have been rather premature.

Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of the Mail Group, is a one-man walking, talking focus group for Middle England. The Mail on Sunday devoted 38 pages to Princess Margaret, the Daily Mail on Monday gave up 30. The Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Times, like their sister titles the Daily Telegraph and the Times, dutifully ran the story on their front pages and covered it comprehensively inside.

One can be forgiven for thinking that the left-wing Mirror, like the Guardian, would have held back, but the redtop - ever mindful of its older working-class readers - has always supported the monarchy. It wiped out 30 pages on Sunday and 25 on Monday. The News of the World gave over 20; the Sun reduced that to 12 (and gave more news space to Pop Idol than to the unpopular princess).

The Observer and Independent on Sunday both carried hostile front-page reports and little inside - although Charles Nevin's spread in the latter was one of the most irresistible reads of the weekend. Similarly, the coverage in the Guardian and Independent at the start of the week was self-consciously derisive.

The newspapers revelled in a story beyond fiction, of a beautiful young woman who chose privilege over passion, then made martyrdom her mantle. In her lifetime, Princess Margaret did more damage to the royal family she claimed to serve than all the young royalty (whom she bitterly criticised) put together. She consumed men like cigarettes - elegantly, addictively and in great quantities until almost the end. Irresistible.

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Tina Weaver, the editor of the Sunday Mirror, must have taken the death of the princess badly. Unlike most of the other newspapers, she actually had an exclusive to run. "I DID sleep with a virgin aged 16 (and I didn't hear him complaining much at the time)," Amy Gehring, the supply teacher recently cleared of sex with an under-age pupil, purred. She and her whip were pushed back to page 16 to make way for the even naughtier princess.

The woman who gave new meaning to the term "relief teacher" then set about a bizarre programme of public rehabilitation. And where do fallen or fragrant women turn for a bit of respectability these days? The Today programme, of course (after you've sold yourself to a redtop). Spoons full of muesli could be heard dropping all over Islington as Amy confessed not just to having sex with the said virgin - but to enjoying it! Perhaps she was inspired by the recent, equally surprising, appearances on the Today programme by that other pursuer of truth and respectability, Mary Archer.

Can the wooing of the women all be down to the programme's female-friendly editor, Rod Liddle?

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Greg Dyke has introduced a football-style yellow card system into the BBC in an attempt to improve its creative output. His "Cut the Crap - Make It Happen" card initiative has been received rather sniffily in some quarters of the corporation. Do the nation a favour, Greg, and go the whole way - red cards to remove the obnoxious from our sight for weeks at a time, hefty fines for bad behaviour off the screen, and a ruthless transfer system for stars and presenters with falling viewing figures.

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Veronica Wadley has wasted no time in putting her stamp on the working culture of the London Evening Standard. More to the point, she has stamped out the hitherto gentlemanly tradition of long and liquid lunches tolerated under the previous editor, Max Hastings. I am told sales of takeaway sandwiches in the locality have rocketed since her arrival, but journalists unused to lunching at their desks must learn not to speak with their mouths full.

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