Breaking News : Jury coach crashes in Paris
We’re hearing that the coach carrying Lord Justice Scott Baker and the jury for the Diana Inquest has just crashed outside the Ritz Hotel in Paris.
The Ritz Hotel in Paris
The coach was apparently trying to avoid a large group of paparazzi when it took a circuitous route into the hotel. It crashed into a hoarding or billboard trapping the occupants inside.
At time of writing, it’s not known if there are any injuries.
The eerie echoes of the events of August 31, 1997, in which Princess Diana died, are striking.
It’s only a few days since Prince William and Kate Middleton were chased by photographers on motorbikes. When will the authorities in both London and Paris do something to stop these dangerous practices?
I hope noone is seriously injured, however, will there now have to be an inquest into this “accident” too? John, when you write the word “eerie” the coincidence does send shivers up my spine and I’m not normally prone to conspiracy.
By Charlotte on October 8th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Charlotte, we now know that no-one was injured and, once they had disentangled the bus, the jurors went on to the tunnel to continue their work.
I don’t think there was a conspiracy here, just that the paparazzi are still causing problems wherever they assemble.
By John on October 8th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Does Royal Anecdotes publish any photos taken by photographers who could be considered harassing members of the royal family?
By Karen on October 8th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
We don’t knowingly publish shots taken by paparazzi who use questionable methods. But we can’t be on the spot every time. The text tells the story.
By John on October 8th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Yes, well it’s good no-one was injured, however, it does affect the jurors ability to assess the evidence since they themselves were victims of paparazzi chase.
I’ve read all the newspaper reports, I still don’t understand how they are going to address the questions thoroughly when key witnesses are unavailable and Diana & Dodi cannot speak for themselves. What is the point of being at the tunnel where the accident took place? Is it just to pain another imagined picture in the minds of the jury? Can someone please clarify all of this for me?
Thanks in advance.
By Charlotte on October 8th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
John, does anyone know what the paparazzi were doing at the tunnel this time? Was there a celebrity there?
By Gigi on October 8th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Gigi, they were waiting for the jurors outside the Ritz.
By John on October 8th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
I just read something that said they were waiting for one of the Spice Girls. I guess it could be Victoria Beckham, if she is still in Britain with Becks visiting his ailing Father.
By Gigi on October 8th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Ah, that may be the case, although quite a few of them followed the coach later on motorbikes.
By John on October 8th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I can’t believe this. How strange. The jurors will really understand what this means to the case. It seems that they could be considered “tainted” based on the situation. Any chance for selection of new jurors?
By Cate on October 8th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Does it seem odd to anyone that these paparazzi seem to have access to high-performance cars and motorbikes? Those vehicles are a bit pricey. Do the media moguls supply these paparazzi with these vehicles, like a corporate car is supplied for some exectuives by Fortune 500 companies? I was just wondering.
By Gigi on October 8th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
John, according to The Daily Mail, Victoria Beckham was in Paris today for a fashion photo shoot. they have a few photographs of her, one in which she is wearing a red-feathered dress.
By Gigi on October 8th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
If the paparazzi have that much money that they can afford to purchase high-performance motorcycles to use solely for their jobs, they are being paid far too much!
By Gigi on October 8th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Gigi, they were getting £20,000 ($40,000) for a shot of Wills and Kate together last week. Although most of them freelance for agencies, I suspect they can afford their own equipment and transport.
By John on October 9th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I can only think of three people whose photograph should be worth twenty thousand pounds sterling, and none of them are Prince William and Kate. Someone has seriously lost their sense of perspective. A publisher would have to sell an enormous number of newspapers to recover his outlay of funds for a twenty thousand pound photograph. I do believe the world of news media has gone mad!
By Gigi on October 9th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
It seems the consumers have gone mad too, to support these kinds of numbers. The media is at fault–but I think we are too.
I guess celebrity culture is in full swing in the UK. This is too bad–especially since the royal family aren’t really traditional “celebrities,” although I guess Diana counts as the first real international superstar/royal.
By Panda on October 9th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Well, Gigi, the first shot of Wills and Kate back together was always going to be big. For newspapers like the Mail and the Sun, 20 grand is chickenfeed. In Diana’s heyday, £1m ($2m) was on offer for an “iconic” shot, like the one when the sun shone through her skirt.
By John on October 9th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Panda, celebrity culture has certainly taken hold here — imported from the States. One of the reasons many people didn’t like Diana much was that she seemed to revel in celebrity status and encouraged its growth. In those days, it was a very alien concept, especially for a member of the Royal Family.
By John on October 9th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
“Panda, celebrity culture has certainly taken hold here — imported from the States.”
I hope you don’t get the lawsuit culture too, though the inquest doesn’t seem to bode too well where that is concerned. I mean, we look to you to be more sophisticated than we are! I hate that this this is happening to the UK.
This whole inquest–and the intrusive nature of it–must remind certain members of the royal family of just how much Diana did change celebrity culture. Her touch must still be felt by many. I don’t think I really understood how controversial she was until recently. As an American, she just seemed like this fairly decent person who was constantly on magazine covers and discovered an ability to do good later in life. But if you scratch beneath the surface, it’s a lot more complicated–and interesting–than that.
By Panda on October 9th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Marie, we’ve got the ambulance-chasing lawsuit culture too, thanks to Tony Blair’s “no win no fee” legislation, and compensation culture.
After 10 years of him, Britain is almost indistinguishable from the USA. The problem was, he didn’t understand the strengths of the British unwritten constitution and simply borrowed from America. But, what’s appropriate there, is not a good fit here. We have a very different constitution.
By John on October 9th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Who is Marie? Is that Panda’s real name? Or did the security screening gobble up a post by Marie?
By Gigi on October 9th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Panda, celebrity culture has certainly taken hold here — imported from the States. One of the reasons many people didn’t like Diana much was that she seemed to revel in celebrity status and encouraged its growth. In those days, it was a very alien concept, especially for a member of the Royal Family.
Weren’t there glimmers, at least, of celebrity culture in the RF before Diana came along? As Prince of Wales, Edward VIII was something of a celeb. And Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret were deliberately marketed celebrity style, albeit on a smaller scale than we’re used to today. One could argue that the film Royal Family in the sixties was a nod toward celebrity culture, offering an up-close look at famous people.
By Aunt Pierre on October 9th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Well, Aunt Pierre, it’s probably true that celebrity culture is also partly a “sign of the times” and not just solely an American fabricated concept. Maybe? Possibly? One wonders, though, if it will ever die down.
Gigi–My name is Panda. Maybe John will explain his reference above. This site has privacy policy, as do most places, so I doubt he would be “outing” anyone intentionally.
By Panda on October 9th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Well, I suppose all of my comments were sucked into the security screening black hole! I haven’t been able to get on for a while and was seriously worried that I had inadvertently offended someone. I hope that the CBS news link that I posted didn’t cause all of these technical problems.
I have since read that W&K doubled back in front of the club and the press set off in pursuit; however I was unable to update my thread because I was temporarily denied access.
By Grace on October 10th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Changing subjects…
John, I see that Camilla became a grandmother on Tuesday, when her new granddaughter Lola arrived. Perhaps this is the reason that Camilla decided to change her hair color to a more grandmotherly silver.
By Evelyn on October 10th, 2007 at 2:13 am
Changing subjects…
John, I see that Camilla became a grandmother on Tuesday, when her new granddaughter Lola arrived. Perhaps this is the reason why Camilla decided to change her hair color to a more grandmotherly silver.
By Evelyn on October 10th, 2007 at 2:14 am
oops… too late.
By Evelyn on October 10th, 2007 at 2:15 am
Grace — I posted a ton of links too and assumed I was the one who crashed the server. Needless to say I was very embarrassed.
So, you see, you aren’t the only one!
By Panda on October 10th, 2007 at 3:08 am
Panda, I think someone named Marie must have posted, and John was replying to her post, but then sometime afterwards, Marie’s post got removed by the security screening device. I see a few of Grace’s posts are missing, also. Is it your understanding that someone posted a few links and that is what caused the site to crash? Why are people posting links when John has repeatedly requested that we not do so?
By Gigi on October 10th, 2007 at 3:59 am
I posted the links before John put up his big “do not post links” post with the espresso picture.
Prior to that post, I was not aware we were not supposed to post links. I haven’t been here long enough to know that. I also haven’t run into a site before that was so strict with link posting–it never occurred to me that this would be a problem.
Then again, it never occurred to me that anyone would be using IE6. Typical self-centered American.
Obviously, I’ll comply from now on.
By Panda on October 10th, 2007 at 4:32 am
Panda and Grace, after the Lilyfromfrance incident, we installed new software to weed out people who post under more than one alias, sometimes with different opinions on each. Such people are often troublemakers — why else do it?
In Panda’s case I recognize why she’s done it, especially as she no longer uses the old name. I’m afraid the name slipped out as I’d just been going through the list.
Grace, we asked everyone not to post long links and the next day you did just that. You also have a series of aliases and have criticised the running of this site in a snarky way. Our editor over the weekend and Monday obviously thought you were up to no good.
We’ve also had some server downtime over the past three days. That may have caused some of the confusion.
By John on October 10th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Panda, on links : short links are no problem, long newspaper type links break the sidebar in older browsers. It’s very easy to lay a link onto some anchor text, such as LINK, using the “a href” formula — I can’t spell it out or it will be converted.
Most spam comments use multiple links to porn or drug sites. Our software automatically takes them out and bins them. If we bypassed that system, the site would be flooded with up to 500 such “comments” a day, and they would end up in the inboxes of everyone who subscribes to a post. We fight a constant battle against this tide of junk, and we do err slighlty on the sterner side to make absolutely sure.
By John on October 10th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Everyone : it wasn’t the links that crashed the site, it was a DNS problem on the server. Muliple links are just binned by the software. However, links do cause problems for some readers, as I’ve explained. It’s just a Wordpress thing, I’m afraid.
By John on October 10th, 2007 at 8:42 am
Well, John, that’s twice that you’ve let something private just “slip” out.
I sincerely wish the best to you and the site.
By Panda on October 10th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Panda, unfortunately I’m out too. I only changed my name once from my first posting and that was because I didn’t like the first name that I picked. This has been my first blogging experience, so I was trying to figure out the best pen name. I have consistently posted as Grace since then. Also, sorry about the link thing - I didn’t go to the home page before I posted it so I didn’t see the warning. I had just been going straight to the W&K blogs. I haven’t been posting comments on the other discussions.
By Grace on October 11th, 2007 at 3:44 am