EPHRAIM HARDCASTLE: King Charles ‘insists on being served slices of the same pie on successive days until it’s gone’

King Charles’ battle against food waste sits uneasily with his reputation as a gastronome. He enjoys excursions to the Ritz kitchens, sipping sauces and discovering ingredients by taste alone. He also loves to entertain and push his chefs out of their comfort zones.

He recently advertised for a sous chef trained in classical French cuisine to follow him around the country.

Promoting his Coronation Food Project, he revealed that he is scrupulous about food waste at home, with a footman revealing: ‘He has tea and cake with his wife most days and insists on being served slices of the same cake every time. days until it is finished.’

Perhaps wise to keep such fastidiousness within the confines of Clarence House!

Fortunately, the King’s chefs don’t have to worry about breakfast. Charles prefers fruits, seeds and nuts.

As a guest at Highgrove, Stephen Fry was caught contemplating an unappetizing pile of flax seeds on the breakfast buffet Prince William saved him. “Oh no, don’t go near the bird table, Stephen, that’s just for Dad.”

Tory MP and former theater maker Giles Watling led a parliamentary debate yesterday criticizing the import of foie gras. Watling is a prominent member of the Garrick Club, where foie gras is not entirely unknown.

It’s surprising that Watling can stomach being a member of a club with so many overfed old geese among its lawyers and actors members.

Keith Richards, recalling his 1970s tours with Stevie Wonder, tells Apple Music, “The rumor in his band was that he could still really see. I think they remained rumors.’

Perhaps Richards’ elevated condition during this period rendered him unable to make an independent diagnosis. “I think Stevie put them on, or she put them on me,” he adds.

Keith Richards recalls touring in the 1970s with Stevie Wonder (pictured in 1974)

Film director Terry Gilliam explained why his adaptation of Into The Woods was canceled by the Old Vic, saying: ‘I’m really tired of being blamed for everything that’s wrong in the world! So I said, ‘Call me Loretta from now on. I am a black lesbian in transition’. In Germany I laughed a lot when I said that, but by the time it reached England I was dead!’

Singer Rosemary Squires, who has died aged 95, was known as the Queen of the Jingles.

In a time before every home had a dishwasher, she was the voice of a ubiquitous TV ad, singing, “Hands that wash the dishes can now feel as soft as your face with mild green Fairy Liquid.”

Recorded in 1960, it lasted for forty years and became the longest-running jingle in TV history. Did the repetition drive her up the wall? Hardly. Every time it was played she got a royalty.

Duran Duran guitarist John Taylor, voted Smash Hits Most Fanciable Male Human Being for four years, once blew his nose and threw the tissue in a trash can.

“A female fan fished out my tissues,” John, 63, remembers. “The next time she saw me, she proudly told me she had caught herself a cold… It became quite existential.”