BRITAIN: Britain's Prince William knocked back liqueurs yesterday and joked that photographers were trying to get him drunk.
Tasting three glasses of two different liqueurs, the student prince, who is 21 tomorrow, raised a laugh. He joked: "Are you trying to get me p****d?"
William, at a Welsh Food Fair in Anglesey with the Prince of Wales, pulled his father's leg about underage drinking.
"Look, Pops, they've got cherry brandy," William said with a hint of mischief in his voice. An apparently amused Prince of Wales raised his eyebrows and replied: "Don't believe everything they tell you."
William had evidently been told the story of when his father was a schoolboy and ordered a glass of cherry brandy in a pub.
"We offered Charles the cherry brandy but he said he'd better not have that and tried the apricot brandy instead," said Carol Jones of Condessa, makers of liqueurs in Llanfaethlu, Anglesey, North Wales.
More drinks were on the way when William sampled a real ale named Amnesia.
"I don't normally do real ale, I like cider, but this is good," the young prince told Martyn Lewis, of the Isle of Anglesey Brewery, after tasting.
Prince Charles spoke of his pride at his son coming of age. "My eldest son is about to become 21 and all I can say is he makes me feel incredibly old... but I am inordinately proud of him. He is an incredible help and assistance to me as I become increasingly decrepit."
A 40-strong Welsh choir of children from the Theatr Ieuenctid Mon sang Happy Birthday to William in English and Welsh. William blew out 21 candles on an iced cake with Happy Birthday William (Penblwydd Hapus William) written in Welsh.
Angharad Williams, 17, who has just finished her AS-level exams at Llangefni School, Anglesey, asked William if he was learning Welsh.
"If he is teaching himself Swahili, then learning Welsh should be a piece of cake," she said. - (Press Association)