Symbols galore: The apparent magic between Di and Dodi is unlikely to get Mohamed Al Fayed and his family anything more than he achieved on his own. He has done everything within his power to win over the country he’s lived in for nearly three decades. Having made his fortune as a go- between in the oil-rich gulf states, he purchased landmarks and symbols galore in Britain. He’s been nearly as generous with his charitable contributions as members of the royal family. During the Thatcher years, Fayed persuaded the fabulously rich Sultan of Brunei to help prop up the weakening British pound. Later, by his own admission, he padded the pockets of Conservative Party politicians with cash and lavish gifts to wage his campaign for British citizenship. When that didn’t work, he went public with his brown-envelope inducements and helped, in a small way, to bring down the government of Prime Minister John Major. Though his businesses have thrived, he’s still an alien. And that suits such detractors as the publisher- entrepreneur R. W. (Tiny) Rowland, who, mocking Fayed’s beginnings, years ago branded him the ““Hero from Zero.''

With or without Diana–they were said to be together again last weekend following a St-Tropez getaway, where they were photographed kissing last month–Dodi Fayed’s lifestyle won’t help. It seems a blur of arm candy from the pages of Hello! and lots of polo ponies. (He quite innocently met Diana 10 years ago at Smith’s Lawn, Windsor, when his Harrods team was playing, and beating, Prince Charles’s.)

Dodi’s day job as a Hollywood producer won’t help, either. His success in Hollywood, where he reportedly tools around in an Arnold Schwarzenegger-style Humvee, may not be quite what it seems. His biggest credits are ““Chariots of Fire’’ (1981), ““F/X’’ (1986) and the 1991 sequel, ““Hook’’ (1991) and ““The Scarlet Letter’’ (1995). He was quite deeply involved in ““Chariots,’’ but his executive-producer credit may have more to do with the fact that his father put up a couple of million to finance the film. ““The Scarlet Letter’’ (executive producer) was a development project Dodi shared with a writer; once somebody else financed it, Dodi was excluded from the actual filmmaking. ““Hook’’ (executive producer) was another story of no money of his up front; Dodi came to it by way of his father’s role as benefactor of a London children’s hospital that controls the rights to the Peter Pan story. Hollywood sources say Dodi put up little or no money for the ““F/X’’ projects (producer), though he did visit the sets. ““Try to find anyone in this town who’s ever seen a Dodi check for more than a few thousand dollars,’’ says a former associate. ““There’s nobody.’’ (Father and son both declined a request for an interview.)

Actually, there’s Kelly Fisher, model. She says she saw a Dodi check for $200,000 but that it bounced. She is suing Dodi for breach of contract, saying he had promised to marry her. Not true, said Dodi’s ex-wife, Suzanne Gregard, model. Gregard, who was married to Dodi for eight months in the mid-1980s, told London’s Independent newspaper that Kelly told her she had broken off the engagement with Dodi two weeks before the Di-and-Dodi ““kiss’’ photos were taken. Gregard said that Fisher also told her, ““I’ve kept the ring; I’m no idiot.’’ Fisher also sold her story for even more money than the bounced check from Dodi. Fisher told the News of the World: ““I was blissfully unaware that the man trying to father my child was setting his sights on Diana.''

Whole chunks of the world are skeptical of Diana’s judgment. People magazine worries that she is becoming once again ““the poster girl for “Smart Princess, Dumb Choices’.’’ Describing Dodi the suitor, some of the British media press xenophobic buttons with words like ““dusky’’ and ““swarthy.’’ If there is a bastion of pro-Dodi sentiment, it is Egypt, the country his father left behind nearly 40 years ago, the country where people still wonder why Mohamed Fayed followed Saudi, not Egyptian, custom and added an ““Al’’ to his name. Here, Dodi Fayed (he doesn’t use the ““Al’’) rules. As one Cairo columnist wrote, ““It’s a pleasure to see at last an Egyptian mounting the highest step of the podium in the Olympic Games of passion.’’ Mohamed Al Fayed could be forgiven for wondering why Britons can’t be persuaded to see things the same way.