Читать книгу The Book of Royal Useless Information - Noel BothaM & Bruce Montague - Страница 12

Charles, the Prince of Wales, carries a supply of loo paper with him at all times. He also carries a hip flask.

Prince Charles likes mushrooms, and sometimes collects his own, having taught himself to differentiate poisonous wild mushrooms from the edible varieties.

In a letter home from Gordonstoun School, where he spent five miserable years, Charles wrote: ‘It’s such hell here, especially at night. The people in my dormitory are foul. They throw slippers at me or hit me with pillows all night, or rush across the room and hit me as hard as they can before beetling back again.’

Charles told Jonathan Dimbleby, his biographer, that his parents, the Queen and Prince Philip, had been ‘unable or unwilling to offer the affection’ for which he yearned as a child, and for this he felt emotionally estranged from them. This bemused his brothers and sister who said they had happy childhoods.

In Charles’s dressing room at Highgrove, there hangs a motto which reads: ‘Be patient and endure.’ It is, he says, his personal philosophy.

Charles removed his wedding ring after his divorce from Diana in 1996, but began wearing it again after her death in 1997. He removed it for a second time the day after the announcement of his engagement to Camilla Parker Bowles.

The government paid £2.5million to Prince Charles in 2009 as rent for Dartmoor Prison.

Charles had a special woodland chapel built in the grounds of his Highgrove estate so that he has a place to meditate alone. His chefs there make orange gin and damson gin, on Charles’s instructions, from fruit grown on his estate.

Charles’s first lover was Chilean socialite Lucia Santa Cruz, whom he dated while at Cambridge. She introduced him to her successor, Camilla Parker Bowles, now his wife, at a polo match in 1971 when he was 22.

Lord Mountbatten, Prince Charles’s uncle, tried to arrange a betrothal between his own granddaughter, Amanda Knatchbull, and Charles. Amanda’s father and Prince Philip did not approve and put a stop to it.

Clean-shaven for most of his life, the Prince sported a beard during 1976, and the previous year, for his installation as a Member of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, he had a moustache.

Prince Charles is qualified to pilot the following aircraft: Chipmunk trainer, Harrier T Mk. 4 V/STOL fighter, BAC Jet Provost trainer, Nimrod maritime patrol plane, F-4 Phantom II fighter jet, Avro Vulcan jet bomber and the Spitfire WWII fighter.

Charles runs his 42-year-old Aston Martin – a 21st birthday gift from the Queen – on bio-fuel made entirely from English wine and he has converted his other vehicles to run on 100 per cent biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

The Queen left Charles to spend his first Christmas alone in England while she visited his father, Prince Philip, who was stationed with the Royal Navy in Malta.

Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same plane, as a precaution against a potential crash.

He studied the Welsh language at the University of Wales after getting a second class degree at Cambridge.

Prince Charles’s first Shetland pony was called Furn.

Charles always sleeps in the nude.

US President Richard Nixon tried to marry off his daughter Tricia to the then 23-year-old Prince Charles. Nixon and his wife even went to the extent of deliberately leaving the couple alone in rooms in the White House, so they could get ‘better acquainted’.

Charles was invited to appear in the television show Doctor Who but turned it down.

Prince Charles’s pick-up line on girls when he attended Cambridge University was: ‘I like to give myself heirs.’ Prince William’s pick-up line at St Andrew’s University was: ‘I’m the next king. Wanna pull?’

Charles has his shirts, suits and dressing gowns made by Turnbull & Asser of St James’s. They embroider the Prince’s crest on the chest of his gown.

The Prince writes everything down in a small notebook he always carries in his pocket. ‘If I don’t write it down, I forget to do it,’ he says.

When Charles was 15, a German magazine published excerpts from one of his school exercise books, claiming he had sold it to raise cash because his parents were so stingy with his pocket money.

In 2008, Prince Charles bought a holiday home with 40 acres of grounds in Transylvania, reputed lair of vampires.

The Duchy of Cornwall comprises 134,000 acres of land in 23 counties. It was created in 1337 to create an income for the Prince of Wales. The latest available figures show that the Duchy’s annual revenue is nearly £17 million.

In the Scilly Isles, the Duchy receives more money from housing benefit than any other landlord.

The Prince of Wales’s official household stands at 125.

Charles is a patron of 20 charities employing 1,569 people.

Between them, Prince Charles with Princes William and Harry receive, on average, 25,000 letters per year.

Prince Charles’s staff each earn an average of £33,221 per annum.

In official photographs for their wedding stamps, Prince Charles stood on a soapbox to give the impression he was much taller than Diana. For their engagement picture, posed on stairs, she was made to stand on a lower step.

Charles produces his own brand of malt whisky, Barrogill, through his North Highland’s Initiative – at £18.95 a bottle – but his favourite is Laphroaig malt Scottish whisky, which he describes as being ‘magic’.

At least a dozen eligible women were considered possible marriage partners for Prince Charles, but virtually all dropped him after a brief romance. Perhaps because, according to one, he was a poor lover; she said his idea of foreplay consisted of three words: ‘Are you ready?’

Mark Bolland (who left his position as Deputy Private Secretary to Prince Charles in 2002) wrote the following in a deposition: ‘We all used to try to stop the Prince writing these political letters in the first place and, given that they were being written, also tried at least to stop them being circulated round the office because of the obvious risk of embarrassing leaks.’

Mark Bolland also wrote: ‘The Prince viewed the media as a useful vehicle for getting across to the wider public his views on issues that were important to him.’ And: ‘The Prince’s very definite aim in all this activity, as he explained to me, was to influence opinion. He saw that as part of the job of the heir apparent. He carried it out in a very considered, thoughtful and researched way. He often referred to himself as a “dissident” working against the prevailing political consensus.’

Prince Charles twice failed his maths O-level exam.

Prince Philip laughed out loud watching his 17-year-old son play Macbeth at school. Charles burst into tears when his father told him later that he ‘sounded like the Goons’.

In one furious argument with Prince Philip, Charles screamed at him: ‘Remember who you are speaking to – a future king.’

At Timbertops School in Australia, Prince Charles was nicknamed ‘Pommy Bastard’.

In 2003, Charles infuriated Ozzy Osbourne’s wife Sharon by sending the recovering alcoholic rocker a bottle of Scotch as a gift.

Charles is the oldest ever Prince of Wales.

Prince Charles was named Hooligan of the Year in 1978 by the RSPCA after he had hunted boar in Liechtenstein.

Charles’s shoes are hand-made. They cost £750 a pair.

When Prince Charles was made an honorary chieftain of the Kainai tribe of Alberta, Canada, they gave him the name of Prince Red Chow.

Comedian Spike Milligan called Prince Charles ‘a little grovelling bastard’ at the 1994 British Comedy Awards and later wrote to him: ‘I suppose a knighthood is out of the question?’ Charles’s answer: ‘Try a little judicious grovelling.’

Prince Charles would sometimes adopt the name ‘Charlie Chester’ when signing himself into clubs.

Every afternoon he has boiled eggs and muffins for tea. The eggs are boiled for exactly four minutes and the cook boils at least half a dozen to make sure at least two are perfect. Charles is so fond of eggs he likes them poached and placed on top of most other dishes he eats, including fillet steak.

At the age of 14, he tried to order a cherry brandy in a bar. He said later that it was the only drink he could think of.

Charles boasts that his 40-year-old RAF mess uniform still fits him.

Charles was an ardent fan of the BBC radio show The Goons and a current fan of Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries). He also loves the Harry Potter movies. When he was a teenager, Charles would entertain the family by singing the Goons’ song ‘Ying Tong Iddle I Po’.

Together with John Cleese, Charles wrote an environmental comedy, featuring himself playing an official visiting a factory, where he is mistaken for the man who cleans the drains. Written in 1989, it was called Grimes Goes Green.

The oldest person to succeed to the throne was the Duke of Clarence who became William IV in 1830, aged 64 years ten months and five days. If Charles succeeds after 19 September 2013 he will have become the oldest monarch to do so.

When Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles he broke with royal tradition by giving her a wedding ring made from Cornish gold. A nugget of Welsh gold provided all royal wedding rings since 1923, including that of Diana, Princess of Wales. It was felt fitting to make a distinction between the two wives.

Prince Charles’s ‘Uncle Dickie’ (Lord Mountbatten of Burma) gave the following advice to his nephew when he was 27: ‘In a case like yours, the man should sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down. For a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive and sweet-natured girl before she has met anyone else she might fall for… It is disturbing for women to have experiences if they have to remain on a pedestal after marriage.’

In April 2011, Prince Charles became the longest serving heir to the throne. The previous incumbent was Edward VII, who waited in the wings for 59 years, two months and 13 days.

At the time of writing, the Prince of Wales is funded by the tax payer to the tune of £1,962,000.

The government pays an average of £1.2 million to Prince Charles each year as rent for Dartmoor Prison.

Prince Charles always carries with him a personalised toilet seat covered in white leather.

In 2011, the Commonwealth decided to alter the laws of succession. In future, a princess will be entitled to ascend the throne even if she has younger brothers.

The 1701 Act of Settlement, the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, the Coronation Oath Act of 1688 and the 1689 Bill of Rights will all have to be amended to allow female heirs to ascend the throne.

Prince Charles quotes:

‘Sometimes as a bit of twit.’ (Responding to David Frost’s enquiry as to how he would describe himself.)

‘I want to make certain that I have some plants left to talk to.’ (Opening the Millennium Seed Bank.)

‘I expect a 30-year apprenticeship before I am king.’

‘If you have a sense of duty, and I like to think I have, service means that you give yourself to people, particularly if they want you, and sometimes if they don’t.’

‘I now complete the process of helping my father to expose himself.’ (Unveiling a sculpture of Prince Philip.)

‘If I hear one more joke about being hit in the face with a carnation by a Bolshevik fascist lady, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m very glad it’s given pleasure to everybody. It’s what I’m here for.’ (Referring to an incident in Latvia when a 16-year-old schoolgirl slapped him in the face with a bunch of carnations.)

‘It’s like swimming in undiluted sewage.’ (Emerging from the sea in Melbourne.) [His remarks didn’t earn him any brownie points with the Australians, and the press went mad.]

‘Who is Llewellyn?’ (Questioning the name on a banner at his investiture in Wales.) [Llewellyn was a previous Prince of Wales.]

‘If I’m deciding on whom I want to live with for 50 years, well, that’s the last decision on which I would want my head to be ruled by my heart.’ (Speaking in 1972.)

‘Dig that crazy rhythm.’ (Trying to get down with the kids at a Prince’s Trust shelter.)

‘Awkward, cantankerous, cynical, bloody-minded, at times intrusive, at times inaccurate and at times deeply unfair and harmful to individuals and to institutions.’ (On the press.)

At a diabetes centre in Abu Dhabi, Prince Charles, who hates fast food outlets, asked a nutritionist: ‘Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s, have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.’

‘I sometimes wonder if two-thirds of the globe is covered in red carpet.’