For as long as anyone can remember, the nation has adored Delia Smith. But that enduring popularity is now being threatened by a mini-revolt, and at the heart of the furore are Delia’s two greatest loves – cooking and football. For as long as anyone can remember, the nation has adored Delia Smith. But that enduring popularity is now being threatened by a mini-revolt, and at the heart of the furore are Delia’s two greatest loves – cooking and football.
The spark of the crisis has been the terrible early-season form of Norwich City Football Club, the team in which Delia owns a 58 per cent stake. The row, however, has been compounded by accusations that Delia is showing more interest in the club’s catering than in the performance of the team.While “the Canaries” languishes near the bottom of the First Division, it has sold its two best players in recent years for £10m, and Norwich supporters claim the most obvious sign of investment has been the opening of Delia’s own restaurant at the club – the £22.50-a-head Delia’s City Brasserie. She has also brought quality meat pies from Lancashire to the terraces, replacing the soggy southern ones on sale before.”I don’t know if her heart is really in how the team does. She is more interested in how her restaurant is doing,” complained Ian Lindsay, editor of the Norwich City fanzine Man United Are On The Telly Again.”When she came along, the fans thought she was the best thing since sliced bread.” But, he added, “the fans have started moaning”.Lee Denington, who contributes to the fanzine, said: “We have a lovely restaurant, but they don’t spend money on the players.”At the Brasserie, supporters can treat themselves to recipes freshly picked from Delia’s books including, on last night’s menu, Italian bean and pasta soup with Parmesan cheese, duck rillettes with a confit of soured cherries, toasted onion bread and watercress, and spiced Tunisian aubergine salad with coriander and mint – and they’re just for starters.”It is of very great concern being at the bottom,” says Mr Denington.

“You are watching them playing really well and they are still at the bottom So you know the other teams must be spending money. If we are still there at the halfway stage, the fans will be on her back.”Delia, 59, became a director at Norwich in 1996, and is said to have sunk some £5m of her own money into the club. In the early Nineties, Norwich was riding high in the Premier League, playing European football against the likes of Bayern Munich Last Tuesday, they were playing away to Stockport County. Delia took control of a debt-ridden club from the despised Robert Chase, who himself was a victim of a fans’ campaign to oust him as chairman.Delia and her husband, Michael Wynn Jones, a publisher with links to Sainsbury, have long been passionate Norwich supporters. In March this year, she was reported to have postponed her next BBC series, along with what would have been by most reckonings her 28th cookbook, in order to devote more time to the club.She said at the time: “Working at the club I found a whole new energy.

I feel it is something new and I want to dedicate myself to it. I’m an all-or-nothing person.”She was unavailable for comment last week on the fortunes of her team – she was on holiday with her husband in France – but the club’s chairman, Bob Cooper, said: “I don’t think the fans have been disappointed by the team’s performances The team have played pretty well in most games… but what they have been disappointed with is the lack of points.”Mr Cooper, who, until two years ago, was a director at Sainsbury, said the money invested in the catering facilities came exclusively from private funds and sponsorship, and “could not have been used for football players”.”Delia goes to every one of the matches,” said Mr Cooper “She is a supporter through and through She loves every moment She is a true fan of Norwich What we have done is manage the debt situation. She has put money in and we have worked very hard to be in the strongest position we have been in for a number of years.”Norwich is a once-proud club with a pedigree of Premier League football, its low position made all the more galling by the success of its East Anglian rival, Ipswich. For the moment, Delia has been spared the fans’ barracking – a drop into the Second Division may change all that.. The land on which the Millennium Dome stands is worth even less than ministers had assumed, says a secret report by leading surveyors – the third major blow to hit the project in the space of a week.

The land on which the Millennium Dome stands is worth even less than ministers had assumed, says a secret report by leading surveyors – the third major blow to hit the project in the space of a week.
The low land value means that demolishing the Dome and redeveloping the Greenwich site could lead to a further £35m hole in the accounts.Last week it was reported the Dome still owes £19m in unpaid bills, and has committed itself to as many as 2,800 different contracts with suppliers, a situation that prompted Japanese bank Nomura to withdraw its £105m bid for the site.The new analysis, prepared by experts Healey & Baker for Nomura suggests that the value of the land is far less than the bank had bid.Healey valued 30 acres of land around the Dome at no more than £53m, and is understood to think that the area on which the Dome actually stands is worth only a similar amount of money.But the surveyors say it would cost nearly £36m to knock down the Dome and obtain fresh planning permission to redevelop the area – which means that the maximum value of the entire site is just £70m without the futuristic building.Guy Hands, the Nomura boss in charge of the Dome bid, withdrew last Wednesday after being refused access to the report by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) into the chaotic finances of the controversial New Millennium Experience Company.This report, commissioned by the NMEC, reveals that many of the contracts signed by the company are due to run beyond January when the Dome was due to close and that builders and architects are still owed £19m by the project.Two particular problems were at the heart of Nomura’s decision to pull out – the revelation that there were actually 2,800 contracts with suppliers, not the 1,100 Nomura had been told existed, and the failure to register the intellectual property of many of the exhibits. This latter problem worried Nomura’s lawyers because it could leave the bank open to litigation from angry artists and designers.Mr Hands believes the Dome cannot now be sold in time to keep it open, even if the PwC report was published tomorrow. This is because it will take at least three months to obtain planning permission from Greenwich Council while the original planning permission runs out on 31 December.Cabinet office minister Lord Falconer has opened discussions with Legacy, a consortium run by Labour supporter Robert Bourne whose plan to turn the site into a science park was beaten off by Nomura.The Government could be facing further embarrassment over the project within a few weeks. It is understood that the National Audit Office is close to publishing its detailed report into the debacle, which will include a summary of the PwC report. Meanwhile, the Public Accounts Committee is planning hearings in November and will call Lord Falconer, Peter Mandelson and the two bosses of the Dome, Jennie Page and Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, to give evidence.. King George VI manned a gun turret during the First World War battle of Jutland despite feeling unwell after a “surfeit of soused herring”, according to released government documents. King George VI manned a gun turret during the First World War battle of Jutland despite feeling unwell after a “surfeit of soused herring”, according to released government documents.
Details about the king’s military service, just unveiled by the Public Record Office, include comments on his stammer and ill health.The documents show that his general conduct aboard HMS Collingwood was regarded by senior officers as merely “satisfactory” but that the ship’s captain noted that the future king, who was then Prince Albert, “promises well”.

He was said to take charge, assume responsibility and “handle men well”.In August 1914 it was recorded that Prince Albert was making “favourable progress”, but there were a number of sick leave entries. He spent a month at Balmoral Castle, at Ballater, Scotland, in September 1915. On the eve of the battle of Jutland, he was in the sick bay aboard the Collingwood, suffering from a surfeit of soused herring.Despite this, he manned his gun turret, fighting throughout the engagement – the last British monarch to see action in war. He was commended in the London Gazette for his part in the battle.After his time on HMS Collingwood, where his general conduct was regarded as only being “satisfactory”, he spent some time on staff working for Sir Stanley Colville, commander in chief at Portsmouth, who described the future king “very zealous and hardworking”..