A Fitzrovia pub is gaining a lot of attention over the past week for all the wrong reasons.
For the past five years the Duke of York in Rathbone Street has had two large images of Prince Andrew emblazoned on the outside of the building after special permission was granted by the Royal Household.
But after a disastrous interview with the prince was broadcast by the BBC and his subsequent forced retirement from public life due to his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, you’d think the pub signs might be covered up or taken down.
But it seems there’s little chance of that happening, for the time being.
“The signs of Prince Andrew cost me well over £500 each and have been up for years — and up they are staying — indefinitely,” said a defiant Alan Monks, landlord of the Duke of York, in a statement to The Sun newspaper last week.
“There’s absolutely no reason that they should come down and I don’t care if people don’t like them.
“I repeat, the signs of Andrew are going nowhere, why should they? The pub will continue celebrating and honouring Prince Andrew and all the good work he does,” he declared.
A day later a journalist from the i newspaper appeared to have been given short shrift by the pub landlord when he asked about the pub signs.