The Royal family are always keen to depict themselves as everyday joes, with constant press ops showing them slumming it with their loyal subjects in an attempt to prove they’re regular folks just like you or me. Take Prince William attending England’s matches at the Euros with his son, Prince George, or King Charles… *checks notes* dancing and hugging people in public?
Yes, the present monarch appears to be letting loose a little more now that he’s the one wearing the crown. He recently embraced visitors to Buckingham Palace in a rare public display of affection and he even joined in with a traditional Samoan dance, in classic awkward granddad style. His commitment to trying new things even extends to kitchen matters, too. Charles, who has never made a habit of having lunch, has been adjusting his routine to incorporate a meal into the middle of his day of late, and he’s taken quite a liking to a particular millennial favorite.
“With some reluctance, he now has something to eat at lunchtime – a snack, really,” a source told The Mail on Sunday. “He now eats half an avocado to sustain him through the day. It’s important, particularly if you have got an illness.”
You will never guess what totally normal kitchen staple caused King Charles to shriek at the sight of it
Unfortunately, the king’s new lunchtime habits may put him back in contact with what is apparently his greatest weakness. A substance that most of us think of as incredibly everyday and unremarkable, but which was so terrifying to Charles it left him shrieking and trembling when he first laid eyes on it. What is this malevolent mealtime mainstay, this king’s Kryptonite? It’s clingfilm, ladies and gentlemen. I kid you not.
Author Tom Bower details the bizarre moment when Charles first encountered the fearsome foodwrap in his book, Rebel Prince, a biography about the king’s late father, Prince Philip. Bower alleges that Philip’s greatest criticism of his son was that he was out of touch with the “real world.” One (supposed) incident that perfectly illustrates this is when the current monarch caught sight of clingfilm for the first time.
“He walked into the dining room and shrieked,” Bower writes, describing an otherwise ordinary lunchtime between Charles and his wife, Queen Camilla. “Fearing the worst, Camilla dashed in after him. ‘What’s this?’ asked her husband, pointing at the food. ‘It’s cling film, darling,’ she replied.”
There is much for us mere plebs to ponder over after discovering this mind-blowing factoid. Do they not use clingfilm at the palace? I suppose not, given that the chief purpose of the stuff is to preserve food — when you’re a Royal, if your finger sandwiches get a little stale you can just clap your hands and a fresh load will appear in an instant.
Or should we be looking at this metaphorically? As an anti-monarchist might argue, what is the Royal family if not the clingfilm around the Commonwealth, attempting to maintain a stale status quo that should really just be thrown out and something fresh and more up-to-date served in its place? Maybe King Charles was shrieking and trembling in the face of this finger-food reflection of his own family.
