Wrong Road: Britain’s Prince Charles drove into...

Wrong Road: Britain’s Prince Charles drove into a storm this week when he used his gas-guzzling Bentley Turbo sports car on a visit to Czechoslovakia just days after making a speech denouncing cars as a peril to the environment. A chauffeur drove the car to Prague so that Prince Charles and his wife, Princess Diana, who both went by air, could use it on an official visit. One London tabloid, saying the car would burn 100 gallons of gas on the trip, snorted at the prince: “Royal Gas Bag.”

* Hard-Nosed: Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher clearly listens too much to her adored son Mark, whose bad advice may have hurt her chances to get a book contract, says a report in June Vanity Fair. The magazine quotes a book agent as saying: “The son is the fly in the ointment. The son thinks he can be the agent. . . . He overestimates the value of the book, and what’s worse, when he had the chance to strike, he didn’t.”

* No Booking: The woman convicted of killing Scarsdale diet doctor Herman Tarnower can’t donate profits from “Stranger in Two Worlds,” her autobiography, to help children of inmates, the state Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday in Albany, N.Y. The court ruled unanimously that a state law that prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes did not violate Jean Harris’ rights to free speech. The former school headmistress is serving 15 years to life in state prison for the 1979 murder of Tarnower, her onetime lover.

* No Joke: Japanese consumers were complaining about toy maker Yonezawa Corp.’s new game, Bacteria Panic, to the surprise of the company. At the end of the game, the loser is holding a card marked AIDS. Other illnesses named included hepatitis and rubella. An incredulous Yonezawa spokesman said the firm “never meant to hurt the feelings of patients and their families,” pointing out the instructions warn: “Never play this game with the real victims of disease.”