On 3 March last year the Times carried a brief Reuters report from Teheran: "The Duke of Edinburgh arrived here today on a three-day private visit at the invitation of the Shah of Iran, who is at present holidaying in Switzerland." That was before the oil crisis which turned the Shah into one of the world's most powerful rulers. Last week, when the Shah was once more in Switzerland, he summoned two British cabinet ministers, Walker and Barber, to come for an interview at his hotel-sized chalet, fitted with all mod cons such as a personal H-bomb shelter. When the two ministers got off the plane, they were met by one of the Shah's underlings, wearing a roll-neck sweater and baggy pants, who said his master was out on the ski slopes but might grant an interview later. The underling refused even to give his name to the two British ministers. In the old days it was the Shah who fell over backwards to be polite - in one instance literally. Legend says that the Shah who visited Queen Victoria bowed so low on taking his leave that he missed his footing and took an imperial tumble down the stairs. Queen Victoria must have been amused, for she disapproved of the Shah, who had sacrificed a sheep on a Buckingham Palace carpet.