Domestic goddess Nigella Lawson has a confession to make.
The cook says that when she worked as a chambermaid she was always trying on guests’ dresses and scents.
Lawson (now 61) got a job at Florence because she wanted to learn languages at Oxford University.
‘I thought I’d like to do German and Italian, so I pretended at the interview that I was going to go to school in Italy, but I didn’t,’ she says.
‘I turned up with a school friend and we had a job share in a pensione.

Above, Chef Nigella Lawson poses for a photo shoot in London. She says that she used to try on the scents and dresses of her guests when she worked as a chambermaid.

An aerial view of All Souls College, Oxford University, where the TV chef planned to study languages

Looking over Florence in Italy, Ms Lawson is a former chambermaid.
‘All I would say is, if anyone ever stays in a hotel and wonders whether people try on your clothes and put your scent on, yes we do.’
Tut-tut!
Bankrupt Boris gets His Boom Boom boom back
Boris Becker, an unseeded 17year-old from 1985 won his first Wimbledon singles trophies.
At 54, the ex-tennis star continues to surprise us.
Becker could make the most unimaginable comeback after he was declared bankrupt in 2017.
His company, BB Private Office, has finally started making money again to help clear his debts, returning a £461,000 pre-tax profit for the year to March. This compares with a £136,000 loss the previous year.
As I wrote in my column last year, a TV show that chronicles his colorful life could help him raise even more funds.
Although Becker was made hugely wealthy after becoming the youngest Wimbledon men’s singles champion, he blew through tens of millions of pounds and has since had his life restricted as he pays off his debts.

Boris Becker, Lilian De Carvalho, and Lilian Del Carvalho are pictured in London at the Golden Vines Awards Dinner, which benefits the Gerard Basset Fund at Annabel’s. It was held on October 7, 20,21.
The German BBC commentator is required to reside at his £5 million Battersea penthouse, and inform the Insolvency Service before travelling abroad.
He was also forced to auction off his prized trophies and memorabilia, which raised a total of £680,000.
He is still in good spirits and was seen enjoying a few drinks on a Dubai beach this week with Lilian De Carvalho Monteiro (his younger girlfriend).
Becker’s private company was set up in 2012 and has been controlled by Mark Ford, one of his trustees in bankruptcy, since October 2017.
After rancorous divorces, bankruptcy and a child conceived with a Russian waitress on the stairs of a Mayfair restaurant, it seems that Boris Becker’s personal affairs are finally starting to settle down.
Harry Potter actors, who owe their success to J. K. Rowling, continue to disown the author.
Chris Rankin, who played Percy Weasley in six of the eight films about the boy wizard, has now weighed in on the row sparked by Rowling’s comments on transgender issues.
‘I do a lot of work with charities that are LGBTQ+ focused,’ the actor says.
‘A lot of my family are members of the community. You can probably guess where my allegiances lie in that respect.’
Rankin adds: ‘When a trans person says they are male or female, that is what they are and that is how we should treat them.
‘It is damaging to them to say otherwise.’
Rowling has stressed the importance of biology, saying: ‘I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives.’
‘Scorchy Scacchi’ Consols for daughter After splitting from Penn
Greta Scacchi, White Mischief’s star, has had many roles in her career. But this Christmas, she focused on her true-life mother role by comforting her daughter Leila George who filed for divorce recently from Oscar winner Sean Penn.
Actress Leila, 29, who grew up in East Sussex and attended £26,000-a-year Brighton College, headed to the beach in Sydney with Greta, 61, who is a dual citizen of Australia and Italy.
Leila’s marriage lasted only 15 months. She met 61-year-old Penn — who had previously been married to House Of Cards actress Robin Wright and pop superstar Madonna — on the set of film The Last Face in 2015.

Sean Penn’s ex-wife Leila and Gretta Scacchi, an Australian actress mother are seen enjoying a swimming session at Maroubra on Christmas Eve
Leila — whose father is Greta’s ex-boyfriend, the American actor Vincent D’Onofrio — is close to her mother, although she changed her surname after being left ‘upset and angry’ as a teenager by the frequent nude scenes of ‘Scorchy Scacchi’.
Greta, who starred in box-office hit Presumed Innocent, explained: ‘It’s not so much what I did in films, but how the material gets used later.’
Referring to stills available online, she said: ‘That’s the worst thing for me. That’s not how I was agreeing to play those scenes.’
Snooty Italian food writer Valentina Harris regaled Michael Berkeley, on Radio 3’s Private Passions, with a tale of encountering British food in the 1970s.
‘I remember this shocked phone call I made to my mother when a very well-meaning English friend served me toast with some… well, she said it was spaghetti, but [it]It had been taken out of a Tin.
‘I was a well-brought-up daughter of a countess and I couldn’t possibly fling it across the room, but what was that?’ Ah, the charms of noblesse oblige.
Dame Joan Collins boasts that she’s in far better shape than her male friends. ‘I’m very strong, very fit and very robust, which most people my age are not — the men particularly. I know quite a few,’ says the 88-year-old Dynasty star.
‘I can carry a suitcase onto a train, I can run upstairs and my doctors say I’m like a woman at least 20 years younger. I’ve always worked out. I’m not that stringent but do enough to keep everything going, such as a bit of fast walking.’ Surely husband Percy Gibson, 56, can carry her suitcases?
Remembering the publishers of music magazine Q’s ‘blue-sky’ brainwaves, former editor Ted Kessler discloses: ‘I had to find out if Morrissey would be interviewed by David Cameron.’
Despite the one-time prime minister’s fondness for The Smiths, the singer refused, lambasting Cameron over his support for fox hunting.
Given Morrissey’s scepticism over immigration, perhaps Priti Patel would have been a more simpatico choice?
Prince Charles has created this oasis of green and organic beauty over the past four decades.
Now, he wants an army of ‘garden guides’ for Highgrove, to explain the ‘inspiration and unique organic management’ behind the Gloucestershire gardens.
Applicants ‘do not need to be horticultural experts’, but must have an interest in gardens and the environment.
Don’t get excited about the pay, though, as no salary is mentioned. You might even be eligible for future honors lists.