Globewatch

Pipe, slippers and the Full MontypPrince Charles launched his 50th birthday celebrations with a familiar royal mixture: a pensioner's kiss o...

Pipe, slippers and the Full MontypPrince Charles launched his 50th birthday celebrations with a familiar royal mixture: a pensioner’s kiss on a struggling estate, a glitzy Palace party and a political spat on the BBC. Having spent the day in Sheffield, the prince later flew to London for his mother’s formal celebration 850 guests at Buckingham Palace — and the repercussions of claims that his staff are at war’ with those of the Queen.

Prince Charles’s companion, Camilla Parker Bowles, was not among guests at the party, but joined a more intimate gathering for friends at the prince’s Gloucestershire home, Highgrove. Buckingham Palace played host to politicians, business leaders and beneficiaries of the Prince’s Trust, including juggler Greg Wells, aged 31, from Lewes, who performed his party trick of balancing a chair and table on his nose. Wells, whose successful small business stems from a trust grant six years ago, set the tone for the part of the day the Prince himself most enjoyed. TouringSheffield’s Manor estate, he said that seeing successful projects to employ young people and wean others off drugs were “the best birthday present I can have”. He was followed by modest crowds singing Happy Birthday and earned loud cheers when 78-year-old local widow Elaine Glaza gave him cufflinks and a carnation and asked: “Can I kiss you?” He replied: “Absolutely”.

Noises of encouragement were repeated when the prince sashayed to Donna Summers’ Hot Stuff on the film set of The Full Monty, earning approval from the film’s star Hugo Speer (“It looks like he’s been practising in his bedroom”) and a cake iced with the message The Full Monarchy. The prince also launched a new website for another, Sheffield-based Prince’s Trust business, announcing that his own, re-jigged bit of cyberspace had taken 6,000,000 hits in its first week. Presents came in all day, including a coyly anonymous gift from the Prime Minister.

WW II bomb

Story continues below this ad

BANGKOK: Subway construction workers unearthed an American-made227 kg World War II bomb in a Bangkok suburb this week, the Bangkok Post reported on Saturday. Workers found the bomb on Thursday about seven metres deep near the Bang Sue railway station which was a strategic transport centre during the war, air vice marshal Prasas Jiamchawee said. He said the bomb was still active and air force personnel transported it to an air base about 200 km north of Bangkok where they destroyed it.

Primordial cell

NEW YORK: Scientists at a Massachusetts company say they have made a human cell revert to the primordial state from which all other cells develop by fusing it with a cow egg, the New York Times has reported. Although the research announced yesterday by advanced cell technology has yet to be published or confirmed, the company said the method eventually could be used to grow replacement body tissues. The company acknowledged the difficult ethical questions involved in creating a cell that is part human and part cow.

Drug therapy

AUGUSTA: a person withglaucoma would have to smoke a marijuana cigarette every two hours about 4,000 a year to experience any medical benefits from the drug, according to new research. In a new study scientist Keith Green, a medical college of Georgia researcher, attacks the fallacy that marijuana is of any value at all in the treatment of glaucoma. Voters in Alaska, Arizona, Oregon and Washington last week approved measures allowing use of marijuana for medical reasons.