had to be a prize in its own right and thereby hangs a very interesting tail. Interesting because the Queen particularly, was not the stiff upper lipped frozen fossil that the state and its machinery made her out to be. In fact the very opposite and I cannot help wondering that she found herself in good company with someone like Diana the rebel.
I had a very close look at Diana´s future husband some years earlier in France when some bemused gendarmes had literally pushed two of us standing at the door of the crypt inside a very narrow dungeon in Avignon unaware on our part that the Queen was in there. She no doubt wanted to see the place for specific reasons as much as the skull of Mary Magdalene which had been fitted into her programme for the day. The problem was that her only way out was past our wall hugging bodies, cobwebs and all.. I could see her coming towards us and I died a million times in anticipation of a very embarassing and inescapable situation since I or any other member of the press was not supposed to be there. Obviously, the republican guards outside were having a bit of fun at her expense. They had giggled like ninnies amid cries of “le press ecrit” as they bundled us in. I had thought it was some sort of security measure or impending run over, but it was simply a prank. The truth was that taking into account the way some of those tours were organized – the Moroccan tour was a case in points. I was surprised that she managed to get out of some places unscathed. In any case, Prince Charles came to the rescue. A red puffy face which somehow did not match the myriads of images I had seen of him, loomed largely over ours, menacingly scrutinizing every move or flicker of our eyes. He glared mutely and spoke volumes as