Is the story of the prince and the puy just a fairy tale?
The secret is out. Now we know why Prince George’s education is so expensive. Thomas’s Battersea charges £18,000-a-year not because of its caring ethos, or its ban on having best friends.
It’s not even demanding top dollar because there are plainclothes officers armed with Glock 17 pistols and tasers guarding the young royal. (Although that proved no deterrent to the 40-year-old woman who was arrested on suspicion of attempted burglary on Tuesday after talking her way on to the premises.)
No, the reason why it costs so much is that it somehow persuades little children to eat puy lentils with smoked mackerel for lunch. Let’s just allow that extraordinary facticle to breathe for a moment. I am at a loss to explain how they do it. Is the
place staffed with French aristocrats? This is clearly the difference between Them and Us, because I cannot imagine serving my eight-year-old a meal without the three Ps – and not one of those stands for puy: pasta, pesto, peas.
High days and holidays. Comfort food. Birthday treat. My neighbour down the road takes her four-year-old out for sushi every Thursday. One of my daughter’s schoolmates has such a taste for esoteric cheese, she could eat Kim Jong-un under the table.
Meanwhile, the Prince George effect has apparently seen a run on puy lentils, which is both utterly bonkers and entirely believable.
But it’s no bad thing, when you consider the weight issues millstoning modern children. Why, if he ups the ante on the celebrity endorsement front, the little fella could yet effect a healthy-eating revolution, one kumquat and Jerusalem artichoke at a time.
Although I feel I ought to point out that although the prince was served puy lentils and smoked mackerel, we don’t actually know that he ate it.