Charles makes a spectacle of himself - in a monocle: Prince said to be trying eyewear because of his dislike of reading glasses

By Sebastian Shakespeare for the Daily Mail

Published: 19:00 EST, 18 January 2015 | Updated: 19:00 EST, 18 January 2015

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One of the Prince of Wales’s harmless vanities is his aversion to being seen wearing his reading glasses.

Charles, 66, was not seen sporting them in public until four years ago at a British Asian dinner at St James’s Palace, where they appeared — pince-nez style — astride the royal hooter.

In fact, such is the heir’s loathing of specs that I hear he has taken to experimenting with a monocle.

Fashion faux pas: Left, how Charles might look in his eccentric eyewear. He was not seen sporting reading glasses in public until four years ago, but is said to have an aversion to them

He daringly unveiled the flamboyant, tortoiseshell-rimmed eyepiece to friends and family at the recent royal gathering at Sandringham over Christmas. It was not well received.

One brave guest compared the heir to Ray Alan's well refreshed dummy Lord Charles (above)

‘You look like someone should have their hand up your jacket,’ tittered one brave guest, referring to ventriloquist Ray Alan’s well-refreshed dummy Lord Charles.

‘We wouldn’t comment on such matters,’ says a Clarence House spokesman.

Seller's remorse for Spencer

Having recently described his prep school Maidwell Hall as ‘cold and unpleasant’ Earl Spencer has cause for another characteristic moan.

His former Cape Town home, Tarrystone, is up for sale for nearly ten times the price at which he sold it.

The lavish estate, which he offloaded for just under £500,000 in 2000, is now on the market for £4.5 million.

While the house has been refurbished by the current owners, they’ve left the ‘Diana suite’ — where the Princess stayed several months before her death — resolutely untouched.

Jack Hayward's send-off at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday was a predictably emotional affair.

Thousands of balloons bearing the club’s gold and black colours were released to the strains of Elgar into the 28,000-strong crowd in honour of ‘Union Jack’, their gregarious former owner, who died last week aged 91.

But inside the director’s box, the atmosphere was bittersweet. For while Jack’s youngest son Jonathan was there, his other two children, Rick and Susan, declined to attend.

The pair launched an unsavoury legal battle with their father during his latter years, inflamed by his decision to sell Wolves for just £10.

‘The option was there but they chose not to attend,’ says a club source.

During David Cameron’s trip to Washington last week, Her Majesty’s Press were given a tour of Blair House, the dinky official guest house of the White House.

They were told of the splendour of the Chinese wallpaper, the number of bedrooms and so forth.

As the gushing curator paused for breath, Channel 4’s droll political editor Gary Gibbon chipped in: ‘Great. We’ll take it!’