Just when you think Dame Helen Mirren could be held in no higher esteem does she not appear on a Soho street dressed as the Queen to tell a noisy band to pipe down.

It wasn't bagpipers (unfortunately for us Scottish journalists who like to put a kilt on stories) but a bunch of dancing drummers who had taken to the streets to promote a music festival.

They stopped to give a prolonged exposition of their skills outside the stage door of the Geilguid Theatre. With the result that Dame Helen's performance as the Queen in the play The Audience was all but drowned out by the thud of the drums. Her Majesty exited the stage and came on to the street to command silence. There was an amount of regal effing and blinding involved.

Dame Helen said: "I'm afraid there were a few 'thespian' words used - but I have to say they were very sweet and they stopped immediately. I felt rotten but something had to be done."

She is to be admired for her fabulous acting, her intellectual rigour and her disregard for narrow-minded obsequiousness. It is difficult also to ignore the fact she is one of the most sensuous women on earth.

I was lucky enough to be stalked by her one evening on the set of Charlie Gormley's Heavenly Pursuits. It involved sex on The Herald's library table and a glass of wine later down in the pub.

We never actually spoke. While pursuing my duties as a reporter I was trapped in the library and had to watch while Dame Helen and some bloke called Tom Conti acted out some amorous moments.

Then I was minding my own business having a pint during my tea break when she stood beside me at the bar. Totally ignored me as she had a drink with the Conti fellow.

I manage to purloin the wine she leaves behind, keeping the glass as a souvenir. But only for one day. ("So let me get this right," said Her Indoors. "This wine glass cannot be washed and you're keeping it because some other woman drank from it." Cue sound of breaking glass.)

But I have digressed from the topic of Dame Helen and her intervention against noisy bands. Don't suppose she is available in July to come up to Glasgow during the marching season.

Dressed as Her Majesty the Queen, she might persuade her loyal subjects to go play their flutes and drums elsewhere and leave the rest of us to enjoy the streets in peace.

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