A chic ashtray, candles, fluffy slippers... why I just can't resist pilfering from hotels: CLARE FOGES

My career as an international thief began a quarter of a century ago, on a balmy afternoon in Morocco. A friend and I sat in the gardens of La Mamounia, one of the grandest hotels in the world, a five-star palace of marble and tinkling fountains that Winston Churchill rightly called ‘wonderful’.Being skint 20-somethings, we were not staying at the hotel. Instead we dropped in for a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice that cost about as much as our flights. It was worth it.Spindly palm trees soared against a cornflower blue sky. Doves swooped. We drank our orange juice and smoked our Marlboro Lights and sighed that perfection doesn’t get closer.I tapped my cigarette on the ashtray, then paused to take a closer look – it was a beautiful ceramic dish hand-painted with flowers, emblazoned with ‘La Mamounia’. A naughty thought occurred: while we couldn’t pack this perfect afternoon into our suitcase, we could take home a souvenir…I had a drawstring rucksack. As I pretended to root around in it, my friend swiped the ashtray into the open bag. And we were off! Outside we burst into hysterical laughter, triumphant as looters with a bag full of gold bullion.While my career as a thief has never reached these giddy heights again, I confess I have never left a hotel empty handed, whether my haul is a pen, a candle or 18 herbal tea sachets.The maid in the posh Dubai five-star I stayed in must have thought I had a hygiene obsession, since every day the bathroom shelf was stripped of its miniature Elemis products. If a housekeeping trolley is left unattended in a corridor, it is possible that a few packets of shortbread will go missing as I wander past.If you are at the breakfast buffet of a European hotel and spot a woman slipping muffins into a tote bag it might be yours truly. Clare Foges confesses that she has 'never left a hotel empty handed', taking pens, a candle or tea sachetsTo my husband’s embarrassment, I will pilfer a whole packed lunch for the children from the buffet: bananas, yogurts, hard-boiled eggs. Oh, and those tiny pots of jam? Yes please!It is ridiculous, really, since I have absolutely no need for a travel sewing kit or plastic bath cap, and can afford a few pieces of fruit. But it seems I’m not alone and far from the worst offender.France’s high-end restaurants are currently suffering a spate of thefts. In Agapé, a Michelin-starred eatery in Paris, customers drop the silver napkin rings into their bag ‘by accident’ so frequently that they have started adding the cost to the bill if they go missing. Another restaurant had 40 walnut-handled knives pinched in a year. At Michelin-starred L’Emulsion near Lyon, one diner stole a toilet roll holder complete with screws.Frankly, this is all a bit tame. A guest in a Berlin hotel took a ceramic sink and rainfall showerhead. A traveller in Austria stole a medieval three-foot-long broadsword from a hotel wall.Perhaps the most audacious theft occurred at the Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles – aka the Pretty Woman hotel. There, a guest chiselled out an entire marble fireplace and made off with it.One survey of hotel managers found that British guests tend to steal bathrobes, Americans prefer pillows, while Italians like wine glasses. Towel-thieving is so rife that many hotels now implant them with electronic chips.At one five-star establishment in Surrey, they have embroidered the corners of their hand towels with ‘stolen from Pennyhill Park’.You’ve heard of Britain’s shoplifting epidemic – this is a refined robbing epidemic.A frequent-travelling and rather wealthy friend of mine tells me, misty-eyed, about all the wonderful things she’s pinched: linen napkins from the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni on Lake Como, cutlery from The Savoy in London, pool towels from the Grand Hotel Central in Barcelona: ‘they were just so nice and fluffy’.Interestingly, the pricier the establishment, the more likely guests are to steal. It is a puzzle, this. If you are wealthy enough to eat at a Michelin-starred restaurant or stay at a posh hotel, you have no need to pocket a pepper pot. So what’s behind it?The thrill of doing something mildly naughty must play a part, as I discovered in Marrakech all those years ago. So too must the desire to lock in a lovely memory.But the main driver for this upmarket pilfering is, I imagine, a desire to get your money’s worth.Luxury hotel prices have surged 49 per cent in five years. If people pay several hundred pounds for a night away, they might feel entitled to take whatever isn’t nailed down whatever their income.Posh robbers justify their thefts with the assumption that uber-luxe hotels must be able to afford it. ‘They price it into your stay,’ claims my light-fingered friend.As awful as it sounds, perhaps the rise of refined robbing comes down to the rise in entitlement culture: if I can have it, I will. Put that way, I am rather ashamed of my past pilfering. I repent – but reserve the right to liberate the odd pair of waffle slippers.Better a Happy Meal than hang-ups, Joe Body Coach Joe Wicks has revealed his four children have never had a McDonald’s. What do they get on treat days, an extra portion of salad? Body coach Joe Wicks has revealed his four children have never eaten a McDonald's mealWhile I know Maccies is junk, I see no harm in getting the odd Happy Meal for my children (with a McFlurry on the side for mummy). Better a bit of processed food than a lifetime of hang-ups about eating the ‘wrong’ things. Joe: stop polishing your parenting halo and let them have a chicken nugget. £6,000 for that Maura? Yes, it was naff of Maura Higgins to attend the US Open tennis carrying a £6,000 Chanel hand bag in the shape of a tiny tennis racket, but the rest of the outfit looks amazing: a Jackie O Thunderbirds puppet come to life. Maura Higgins attended the US Open tennis carrying a £6,000 Chanel handbag in the shape of a tiny tennis racketI'll never get my life in order It was rather dispiriting to read a recent survey which identified ‘the top 15 signs your life is in order’, and see which I had achieved. Cancelling unused subscriptions (no), tracking your home’s energy usage (nope), knowing when bin day is (isn’t that what husbands are for?), making your bed every day (only if you mean like Tracey Emin). The top sign you’ve got it all sorted is making regular savings. Seeing as I still don’t have a pension at 45, it seems my life is well and truly out of order.Rupert Grint (who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films) is the latest to come under fire from trans activists, for being cast in Broadway’s Harry Potter And The Cursed Child – created by their arch nemesis JK Rowling. Rupert Grint, who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films, has come under fire from trans activistsThey are calling Grint a hypocrite, given his previous comments on standing by the trans community. If he’s changed his mind, good on him for refusing to be cowed by it.A grandmother who has spent decades tending a street garden outside her London home has been told to get rid of it because it might encourage ‘anti-social behaviour’. Katharine Hoskyns and the street garden she's told 'may encourage anti-social behaviour'Is the council mad? She should be given a medal – not an order to stop.