Robson succeeded in that, but it took him some time. The prince has clearly been wounded by all the mockery of his efforts to discourage the use of chemicals on the land and he won't allow his spirits to be stirred up on the subject by just anyone.

"People are always trying to say I'm oldfashioned, " said Charles, "but I'm just trying to remind people of the things that have been needlessly thrown away. People have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. All I have been trying to do is bring the baby back." That was a clumsy metaphor but once he'd started I suppose he had to finish. He seems like the sort of person who wouldn't plant a metaphor without providing it with a pergola.

The prince became gradually more animated; he brought up Europe. He said he had been going on for years and years, "to a chorus of ridicule", about protecting rare species and "what could be crazier" than EU legislation that made it impossible to trade the seeds? "The craziness of what we have done to this world!" he cried. "Lunacy!" Then he laughed a little, recollecting himself.

Robson put it to him that organic gardening is hard work. "Seven years of double-digging to get rid of ground elder. . . Seriously, sir, were you never tempted to reach for the glyphosate?" The prince recoiled. "Never. Never. I cannot bear the stuff, " he said. Then he pointed out that he has a phalanx of gardening staff to do the double-digging for him.

(He didn't really, but wouldn't it have been nice? ) Robson wanted to know at least how he keeps the slugs off his hostas, hostas being the McDonald's Happy Meal of slug society. This caused the prince to ramble into the dim, ferny territory of philosophy.

"You have to take the rough with the smooth, " he observed. "To expect that everything has to be absolutely perfect is expecting too much and the damage you do trying to get it perfect can be unacceptable." However, he conceded that they're "lucky with hostas" at Highgrove.

Those not so lucky as to have a vast private estate have been the subject of a survey by Cornhill Direct Insurance to determine what people find most annoying about their neighour's gardens. Cornhill's Simon Coughlin discussed the findings on Thursday's Last Word with Matt Cooper.

It seems 3,500 survey respondents are irritated past reason by wind chimes, solar lights, sprinklers and barbecues. The sound of children playing is also incendiary. God, what a peevish lot we are.

This led to an interview with Ciaran Cuffe of the Green Party, whose anti-noise bill is trapped in the D�il. He wants to see noise-control officers appointed, who can come and confiscate your neighbour's stereo, or more worryingly, yours.

"Could this become a charter for cranks?" asked Cooper, a question that turned prophetic as text messages streamed in from people complaining about being able to hear their neighbours going to the toilet and having sex (or as Cuffe coyly put it, "getting up to all sorts of things next door"). If the Green bill ever makes it into law, everyone will just have to move to the country and learn to take routine slurry-spreading on the chin.