The truth about my breakfast routine, the royal fleet of cars and plans for my coronation
Clarence House has updated the Prince of Wales's website with FAQs about his views on architecture, boiled eggs and alternative medicine. In the spirit of openness, he has prepared a blogpost throwing more light on these important issues. Stephen Moss has seen a draft that has inexplicably leaked …
It's lovely to be visiting our territories in the southern hemisphere. The weather in Gloucestershire is filthy at this time of year, so Camilla and I are pleased to be getting a bit of sun. The people here are jolly friendly, too, though Camilla was a bit taken aback by some of the native dancing in Papua New Guinea. She said she hadn't seen so many people in a state of undress since the Heythrop's annual hunt ball. One of those wretched koala bears in Adelaide gave her a nasty scratch as well, but we've had her tested for rabies and she seems to be fine. Thank God it wasn't the Duke of Edinburgh.
I'm pleased to have been out of the UK for a fortnight, because Bunny in the press office tells me she has been tidying up the Clarence House website (you will notice that I am, contrary to what my critics say, conversant with our new digitised world) and trying to explode a few myths about me. I told her before I left that this was absurd and that I rather liked the way people saw me – as someone committed to old-fashioned values – but she was head girl at Benenden and is not easy to divert once she is set on a course of action.
My secretary Tiggy, who has been travelling with us, has been passing on some of the titbits, which she says have caused a bit of a stir back home. The Great Egg Question seems to have occasioned the greatest controversy. This canard was started by Jeremy Paxman, who, Tiggy tells me, is now in a richly deserved spot of bother. He said in one of his terrible books that I liked to have seven eggs prepared so I could choose the one with the perfect yolk.
People immediately got the wrong end of the stick on this, thinking these were breakfast eggs. One does occasionally have an egg for breakfast, but generally devilled kidneys are more to my liking, though the sauce must be piquant. Lots of Worcester sauce is my advice. But back to the eggs. One eats boiled eggs after a day's hunting, when you return at dusk damp, tired and ravenous. I usually eat three, with copious cups of Earl Grey tea, and fresh bread smothered in creamy butter and cut into soldiers half an inch wide.
I don't know where Paxman got his idea that I have seven eggs cooked to order. After a day in the field we have about 36 prepared – cooked for between four-and-a-half and five-and-three-quarter minutes. None that is overcooked ever reaches the table. Sam the under-footman and egg-tester-in-chief sees to that. Seven eggs indeed. With that level of accuracy, I can see why Newsnight is now in the soup.
Bunny has also dealt with the question of my environmental credentials, pointing out that my fleet of top-of-the-range Jaguars, Audis and Range Rovers now run on biodiesel made from cooking oil and that my beloved Aston Martin has been converted to use bioethanol made from a mixture of cow dung and old copies of Country Life. What she doesn't point out is that, in any case, these days I rarely use the car and much prefer to travel in one of my helicopters.
The architecture question is effectively disposed of. Of course I don't dislike all modern architecture – there are many 18th-century buildings I like just as much as the masterpieces of the gothic. Bunny has also dismissed the idea that I am planning a multi-faith coronation. I have barely given it a thought – that would be disrespectful to Mummy – and in the little time I have devoted to thinking about it I have certainly ruled out a multi-faith ceremony. No, it will be conducted according to the rites of the Greek Orthodox church, and the monks of the monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos have kindly agreed to host it at six weeks' notice.
I think Bunny is rather pleased with what she has achieved so far – she sees this as the start of the fightback after that absurd fuss about my friendly missives to my ministers. She has established that Camilla doesn't smoke, that I'm very happy to see the quack occasionally if the St John's wort isn't doing the trick, and that the Duchy of Cornwall is not channelling funds through the Cayman Islands to avoid tax. (More's the pity – everyone else seems to be doing it.)
But I'm still fretting somewhat as I lie here in a hammock taking in the late-evening sun over a much-needed gin and tonic. (Is there anyone in New Zealand who isn't a 20st rugby player with a vice-like handshake?) What worries me is that once you open Pandora's Box and start paying lip service to that modern obsession, transparency, who knows where it will end?
Bunny has left some of the really difficult questions until I get back. Will we have to admit that the gold signet ring I'm always accused of fiddling with is filled with snuff? People are sure to want to know why I am the last person in the world who loves the Goons. There will be the usual questions about me saying I wanted to live inside Camilla's trousers and be her tampon. Could we say it was a mishearing and that I actually said "crampon"? And then people will want to know whether I really talk to plants. This will not, as I was remarking to a Chatham Island forget-me-not yesterday, end well.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.guardian.co.uk |