Today’s 40th anniversary of the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside London’s Libyan embassy revives unhappy memories at Scotland Yard. 

Police kidnapped the media, holding them for four hours in the Travellers Club, while the murderers and 슬롯사이트추천 other ‘diplomats’ were secretly smuggled from the embassy.

Reporters and cameramen were summoned from the scene to a police briefing, kept incommunicado and not permitted to leave. 

BBC reporter Michael Cole, finding the outside broadcast units unmanned at the embassy on the 11th day of the siege, alerted his news desk to send reinforcements.

‘By the skin of their teeth, the OB started just as the first of the alleged diplomats emerged, single file with their hands above their heads,’ recalls Mr Cole. ‘Not for the first time, the Met used the media but did not hesitate to frustrate legitimate journalism with cavalier disregard for the public’s interest. There was never a word of apology.’

Pictured: Police officer Yvonne Fletcher who was murdered in 1984

Police kidnapped the media, holding them for four hours in the Travellers Club, while the murderers and other ‘diplomats’ were secretly smuggled from the embassy. Pictured: The Libyan embassy in London

Reporters and cameramen were summoned from the scene to a police briefing, kept incommunicado and not permitted to leave. Pictured: A photograph taken during the siege of the Libyan embassy

Garter King of Arms and the King’s heraldic adviser David White, in the royal doghouse for using unorthodox means to get Charles to nod through a favoured appointee, reportedly went ungonged for not shouting ‘God save the King’ at the Queen’s funeral. 

Not So Hapless Dave was one of the four Kings of Arms who defied the King’s decree that peers couldn’t wear their coronets at his Coronation. 

This clearly irked His Majesty, who failed to honour any of them in the post-Coronation list.

So how does Brian Cox rate Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Napoleon in Sir Ridley Scott’s biopic? 

‘Terrible. A truly terrible performance,’ barks Brian. ‘It really is appalling. I don’t know what he was thinking. I think it’s totally his fault and I don’t think Ridley Scott helps him. I would have played it a lot better than Joaquin Phoenix, I tell you that.’ Apart from that, Cox, how was Waterloo?

So how does Brian Cox rate Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Napoleon in Sir Ridley Scott’s biopic? ‘Terrible. A truly terrible performance,’ barks Brian. Above: The actor pictured in London last March

Centre stage in Netflix’s Bridgerton, former opticians assistant Nicola Coughlan can’t fathom how her life has changed.

‘I’m about to begin a global press tour for one of Netflix’s biggest ever shows. It’s hard for me to comprehend it,’ she tells Harper’s Bazaar.

‘The funny thing is, I don’t feel any different to the girl who used to ring people up and tell them they’re overdue for their eye test.’

A kerfuffle in the literary world with the London Library inviting American scholar Elizabeth Winkler to speak on her theory that Shakespeare was female.

No danger of an invitation for cross-dressing Rupert Everett who, in the 2009 St Trinian’s spin-off The Legend Of Fritton’s Gold, declared Will a woman.

Presumably she will avoid using Everett’s co-star Zawe Ashton’s declaration: ‘The Bard was a bird.’

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