Royal eggs

Bryan Appleyard updates his earlier post on Prince Charles's boiled eggs with an erudite discussion of the question. This is a must read. Leaves me wondering what Jeffrey Archer's preferences are in the egg department.

Tags: eggs, hard-boiled eggs, Prince Charles

Comments

[Susan]

I tend to agree with Chuck's taste in eggs - 5 minutes after the water reaches a boil is perfect, but just lightly simmering for those five minutes. Unfortunately the woman who cooks my eggs is a very sloppy old sow and quite unreliable in her performance.

[Bryan Appleyard]

It is a little known fact, Debra, that Jeffrey, not long after providing us with quantum theory, relativity and evolution and inventing the internet, also discovered the egg. His own preference is for scrambled, though, I am afraid, I have heard nothing of the egg preferences of his dear wife, Mary.

[Maxine]

Don't you mean "fragrant" wife, Bryan?

[Bryan Appleyard]

Sorry, Maxine, you are quite right, she is 'fragrant', it is in the court records.

[Debra Hamel]

What's the Mary story??? Gosh, you guys have all the phone over there--Jeffrey Archer, those guys in the House of Commons shaking their breasts at Ken Follett's wife. We just have Britney Spears and J. Lo.

[Maxine]

Mary Archer is known in the UK for being "fragrant" when after one of his famous court cases -- the one where the prostitute accused Archer of something shady (all set up by some newspaper), the judge let him off as Mary (sitting in court) was so fragrant that the judge opined nobody married to her could ever associate with a prostitute.
Yes, british justice was and is alive and well you will be glad to hear.
Unbelievable isn't it?

[Debra Hamel]

Wow. That's a great story.

[Tom]

I found this in the BBC News: Summing up, Mr Justice Caulfield described Mrs Archer as a vision of "elegance, fragrance and radiance".

Apparently Lord Archer won his libel case (he was accused of being with a prostitute) because Ted Francis, a TV producer, lied about Lord Archer's wherabouts on the night in question. In fact he won £500,000 which is quite a bit of spare change to win simply because someone accuses you of being with a prostitute, especially when it turns out to be true.

I'm not sure how things are in Britian, but describing someone as "fragrant" in the USA is usually not a compliment.

[Tom]

My education is becoming more complete each day. Here is a fine quote...

Vanessa Feltz: “There’s only one fragrance in the Archer household and that’s the smell of money.”

There's a biography about Ms. Archer (perhaps Debra could review it) and in a review in the Sunday Times I found this:

The long-standing public image of a brilliant and high-minded woman shackled to a rotter by her own virtue is transmogrified into a picture of something rather different — a cold, vain, tough, controlling, insensitive, patronising attention-seeker, a self-confessed cabaret-star wannabe who demands privacy yet has courted publicity and exploited it, one of the great and the good and a pious choirmistress whose evidence in her husband’s perjury trial was publicly called into question by a judge. Some of her follies are almost worthy of her husband.

[Maxine]

Thanks, Tom, you've refreshed my memory about the Archer prostitute case. I do recall that the prostitute herself always said she wasn't a prostitute, her name was Monica Caughlin (may have got surname wrong) and she died some years later in a car accident, after having an unhappy time of it I think I read at the time.

In the UK we do have that US use of the term "fragrance" -- if you said "the tramp was fragrant" everyone would know what you meant. But if the word is used without qualification, one would assume it meant "nice smell" and that is how it is usually used over here -- particularly among the older generation (i.e. judges!).

Re. your extract about mary Archer, she did have a reputation for some years of being the high-minded, intellecutual, quiet wife. But this reputation has been severely dented by numerous court cases and events too -- eg a case was bought against her by a woman employee, and there was some fairly recent unpleasant business over Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge.

Has anyone mentioned in this thread anywhere that Jeffrey Archer made up his degree on his c.v.? And that many, many years ago he was a conservative MP but went bankrupt, so by our rules can never be an MP again? It was Mrs Thatcher who rewarded him with a peerage and chairmanship of the conservative party after Archer had been in the wildreness for years, during which time he promoted the Tory cause and made lots of money for the party.

There was also another Archer scandal (J not M) about an international aid charity and where all the money went - again, forget details.

An unsavoury couple, though from all accounts Jeffrey is very charming. Of course, you can be charming and still be a fantasist (OK, liar) and crook.