Convenience Big Store: “He is, quite simply, happier”

7 May, 2023

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The King in Berlin: "He came, he spoke, he inspired." Ronny Hartmann/AFP/Getty

"He is, quite simply, happier"

Just seven months into Charles III's reign, says Robert Hardman in The Spectator, you can already see "the ways in which he is going to be different" as a monarch. The "simplistic narrative" that he would have to "button his lip" over opinions he's been voicing for decades has swiftly been debunked. Yes, he agreed not to attend the Cop27 climate summit. But squeezing into a conference with more than 100 other leaders would have been a "huge waste of a diplomatic trump card" anyway. Three months later, when UK ministers were struggling to attract high-level guests to their "biodiversity conference", Charles graciously offered to host a Palace reception afterwards. All of a sudden, "both the numbers and the calibre of delegates shot up". It's a perfect illustration of how Charles sees his role – not "meddling", but "mobilising" – the "convener King in action".

Those who know him well have detected "something different" about the King lately. "He is, quite simply, happier." That might seem odd when, having just buried his mother, he was immediately assailed by an explosive memoir and "six-part TV broadside" from his younger son. "Yet he is very clearly enjoying his new role." I saw it time and again on his recent trip to Germany, during which he became the first foreign leader to be welcomed in front of the Brandenburg Gate, and the first to address the Bundestag in German, for which he drew "rave reviews". As Germany's best-selling paper, Bild, declared: "He came, he spoke, he inspired." At the heart of his contentment, surely, is the new Queen. Like Prince Philip, Camilla takes a "no-nonsense, eye-on-the-clock" approach to the role of consort. "If the King is dawdling, a gentle tap of handbag on back usually does the trick."

Love etc

It took me a while to understand why King Charles is so in love with Camilla, says Jane Moore in The Sun. "Then the penny dropped. She makes him laugh." Ever since he was in "short trousers", everyone Charles has met has acted in the same way: "deeply earnest and frequently star-struck". So of course he's drawn to someone "grounded, easy-going and a little bit naughty". A quick Google of "Charles and Camilla get the giggles" brings up images of the pair chortling at various stuffy ceremonies: a "cat organ" performance at Clarence House; viewing a photo album of pasties in Mexico; a performance by "throat singers" in Canada (above). The "consistently genial" Camilla is the perfect balance to her occasionally "moody" husband. She's definitely "the power behind the throne".

❤️👑 When Charles first met Camilla, in 1970, she is said to have introduced herself by saying: "My great-grandmother was the mistress of your great-grandfather – so how about it?"

Property

THE BEACH HOUSE This two-bedroom mews house is minutes from Queens Promenade in Margate. Set across three storeys, it has an airy open-plan kitchen, original thick beams, exposed brick walls, and a roll-top bath from which you can look out across the sea. Margate Old Town is within walking distance and famed for its vintage theme park and seafood bistros. Trains to London St Pancras take 90 minutes. £450,000.

Staying young

The key is happy thoughts. Jason Alden/Bloomberg/Getty

Think yourself healthy

Imagine a world where a McDonald's cheeseburger could be one of your five a day, says Chloe Gray in Women's Health magazine. Well, it could be – sort of. A growing body of research is exploring the connection between your feelings about foods and the physiological response you have to eating them. The basic idea: if you joyfully devour your Big Mac rather than view it with suspicion, it might not wreak the same havoc on your digestive system. It might even deliver you more nutrients. It's all down to what's called the "expectation effect", where your thoughts about something have the power to change your physical response to it. To take one example: sustained stress causes a negative balance of bacteria in the gut, which is where 95% of the happiness hormone serotonin is made. Here are some tips to "think your food healthy".

Whatever you eat, try to appreciate it. Pleasure is linked with lower levels of the hormone ghrelin – less ghrelin means less hunger, and so less temptation to overeat.

Don't stress. When your body is in fight or flight mode, it redirects blood flow away from your gut, slowing digestion.

Chew as much as possible. Digestion starts in the mouth: if you chew something 40 times you'll get 15% better nutrient absorption than if you do it 10 times.

Practise deep breathing before eating. This will activate your parasympathetic nervous symptom, which helps digestion.

There will be no issue of The Knowledge tomorrow. We will be back on Tuesday.

The great escape

...though the Foreign Office says it remains "extremely dangerous"

Sun, sand and submachine guns

Almost two years on from the chaotic fall of Kabul, says Tom Robbins in the FT, tourists are starting to return to Afghanistan. Newly established tour operator Safarāt is about to take a group on a two-week trip around the country via Kandahar, Herat and Bamyan. Travellers with another firm, Untamed Borders, are halfway through a similar route in reverse. They are going in the face of "the starkest official warnings". The UK Foreign Office says the country is "extremely dangerous" and recommends nobody visit. The US State Department warns "the risk of kidnapping or violence… is high". They're not kidding – three UK citizens, including YouTube "danger tourist" Miles Routledge, are in Taliban prisons.

But tour guides argue that the country is safer now that Western forces have pulled out. "The Taliban were responsible for the vast majority of the insurgency in Afghanistan," says Safarāt founder Joe Sheffer, "so the minute they gained control of the country, security rapidly improved." Getting there is surprisingly easy – there are direct flights from Dubai and Istanbul; visas can be issued at 24 hours' notice. Sheffer, a veteran war photographer, says the idea to lead tours came from a pub conversation with someone arguing that media tales of Ukrainian resolve were being overstated. "I said, 'OK, I'm going back next week, come with me and actually speak to people,'" says Sheffer. That trip never happened, but the idea of taking people "to see with their own eyes" stuck. Book here.

Books

A captured Spaniard bows before Welsh privateer Sir Henry Morgan

Pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries tend to be viewed as "freewheeling booty-snatchers", says Alice Loxton in The Daily Telegraph – renegade mercenaries who didn't play by the rules. In fact, the opposite was true. Almost every aspect of the seafarers' lives – drinking, gambling, weapon-care, sharing ill-gotten gains – was dictated by a "rigorous" set of regulations. All new recruits were forced to publicly swear to uphold the so-called "Pirates' Code", and miscreants faced stiff punishment – "keel-hauling", for example, saw the condemned dragged across the barnacles under the ship. Points of dispute were resolved with "collective decisions" in something called the Common Council. And there were plenty of checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. Even the captain could be voted out of his position, "if he proved to be a lily-livered scallywag".

The Pirates' Code by Rebecca Simon is available here.

Fashion

Lagerfeld with a bevy of supermodels in 1995. Stephane Cardinale/Sygma/Getty

The iconic designer who behaved like a cartoon villain

If internet naysayers are to be believed, says Finn McRedmond in The Irish Times, "the worst party of the year happened on Monday night". The Met Gala is always panned as a "parade of unhinged A-listers, all trying to look more ridiculous than the last". But critics claim this year was particularly bad because it was held in honour of the late "fashion behemoth and renowned controversialist" Karl Lagerfeld. To be fair, "it is hard to think of a more cartoonish villain", what with his fingerless gloves, starched shirts, cravats, dark sunglasses and sleek white ponytail. He so loved Choupette, his cat ("famously the preferred pets of the evil"), that she has her own agent and inheritance. He was routinely derisory of "#MeToo, gay marriage, fat people, women and immigrants". To modern sensibilities, the iconic designer was the very essence of the "Bad Male" and the tyranny of masculinity.

"Bo-oo-ooring!" What happened to being comfortable with complicated people? Yes, Lagerfeld was "very, very mean", but he also redefined the world's greatest fashion houses: Balmain, Chloé, Chanel. And his "purity of vision" was incredible. At the height of the 2008 recession, he "went bigger, more absurd and more exciting" than ever. As every brand around him fretted about their climate credentials, he shipped an entire iceberg from Sweden to Paris. He understood deeply that something as inconsequential as fashion doesn't have anything to do with morality – it's there to make people look beautiful. "Lagerfeld should be venerated as great. No one needs to think he was good."

Quoted

"You're either a fighter or a runner. And runners always run out of road."

American author Dennis Lehane

That's it. You're done.

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