Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — Prince Charles doesn’t order seven boiled eggs for breakfast in order to choose the one he likes best, his office said in a statement designed to dispel myths about the heir to the British throne. The claim was made by BBC Television presenter Jeremy Paxman in a 2006 book, On Monarchy. The website of the Prince of Wales, as Charles is officially known, was updated Tuesday to dismiss that assertion and other commonly held viewsabout the prince and his family. As Britain’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, 86, celebrated 60 years on the throne this year, courtiers are gradually managing the process of succession. The prince celebrates his 64th birthday today. Charles has a reputation for eccentricity. In 1994, he was mocked in the media for revealing he talks to plants. He’s been a vocal critic of some modern architecture, including calling an extension of the National Gallery in London a “monstrous carbuncle.” He criticized traditional science in a 1996 speech in which he said it had assumed a “tyranny” over “our understanding of the world.” Tuesday’s statement on the prince’s website explains why, despite his environmental interests, the prince is driven in a Bentley and owns a classic Aston Martin that his son Prince William used on his wedding day last year. “The prince does not own or choose to drive around in a Bentley,” it says. “The car is required for some engagements for security reasons” and is owned by London’s Metropolitan Police. It points out that the prince’s cars have been converted to run on biodiesel or bioethanol to reduce emissions. The website also denies that Charles advocates dangerous and untested medical therapies, saying that he favors a “wider, preventative approach to health care by addressing the underlying social, lifestyle and environmental causes.”

An original piece of artwork from the Beatles’ Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album has fetched $87,720 at an auction, according to Sotheby’s. The auction house said the original 1967 collage for the insert to the album sold to a bidder in London on Tuesday. The sale marked the first time the collage by Sir Peter Blake was on the market. The auction house said Blake and his wife worked closely with Paul McCartney and John Lennon to create the imagery of the Sgt. Pepper collage. Sotheby’s said the collage was sold from the collection of architect Colin St. John Wilson.