Prince Charles turned heads when he helped
launch a campaign to get people talking about
"bottoms and bowels".
The prince joined television celebrities to
promote Loud Tie Day, planned to raise
awareness about bowel cancer and £1m funds
for research.
He urged the public to
lose their inhibitions
about discussing the
disease which affects
30,000 people a year
and kills thousands
more people than
breast cancer.
"Hopefully as a result of today we will be able
to talk about it a great deal more," he said.
"Everyone, I suspect, knows somebody who
has had bowel cancer, yet there is a real
reluctance to talk about bowels and bottoms in
this country."
Say it loud
Prince Charles said the word "breast" prompted
similar inhibitions a few years ago.
"But as a result of raised awareness, survival
rates for breast cancer are rising dramatically
and by talking about bowel cancer we all might
help to save thousands of lives in the future,"
he said.
Strong winds
prevented the prince
unfurling a specially
designed giant tie
which instead was
secured 140ft up the
side of the London
Television Centre on
the South Bank.
He joked with guests
that his blue and
yellow tie was not loud
enough in comparison.
Loud Tie Day will take place on 3 November,
when people will be encouraged to wear
outrageous ties and donate £1 to help raise
awareness of the disease.
~*~
Prince gibes at Dome's limited life
BY ALAN HAMILTON
THE Prince of Wales took quiet
satisfaction yesterday from
attending an architectural
awards ceremony within sight of
the Millennium Dome in which
the controversial Greenwich
Mushroom failed to achieve
even a mention, honourable or
otherwise.
Promoters of the Dome entered
it for the annual conservation
and regeneration prizes given by
the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. But it came
nowhere, soundly beaten by the Sainsbury's branch on the
same site, claimed to be the world's first energy-efficient
supermarket, a crofter's cottage on the Isle of Skye and a
restored medieval house in Wales.
As the Prince arrived at the Trinity Buoy Wharf, a converted
18th-century warehouse in the London Docklands, aides
ordered photographers not to take his picture with the Dome
- which he has never visited - as background. In the
warehouse, the Prince pointedly remarked how sad it was
"that so many new, expensive and elaborate buildings seem
so often destined for such a brief and one-use life".
Riding his well-known architectural hobbyhorse, the Prince
called for the reuse of old buildings: "When there is talk of
building four million new homes in the country, why not start
with the buildings we've already got rather than cover the
countryside with new houses?"
Across the river, the Dome looked positively deflated, either
at the Prince's remarks or at its failure to win a prize, even in
the urban regeneration category of the RICS awards. By
contrast, Simon Pott, chairman of the RICS judges, lavished
praise on the British Airways London Eye, enthused over the
interior of the Tate Modern and said that the rebuilding of the
Royal Opera House was something of which the whole
country could be proud - even if the sightlines from the royal
box were still less than perfect.