Prue Leith, the famous cook, presenter and writer was recorded by several bystanders shouting Stephen Hawking’s ‘theory of everything’ at police while being detained for brawling outside a pie stall in Cambridge on Tuesday.

“I’m mortified. Hawking and I had had a few drinks and, while I made us some cheese toasties to soak up some of the barley wine, Stevo started rapping about a single theory unifying all aspects of physics. I assumed this was up there with the story he once told me about pulling a librarian at a convention at the Science Museum in ‘83. That time we’d been hammering the creme de menthe frappes and I thought he was talking bollocks. I didn’t realise this was for real.”

Leith continued “I’d lost all track of time and when the bloke on the pie stall said they were shutting for the night, I just lost my shit. Apparently, I tried to slash a copper with a wooden fork, and it went downhill from there. I thought the theory might defuse things, but I was wrong.”

Despite Hawking admitting some time ago that his search for the elusive theory was actually ‘pissing up a rope’, it appears he continued his work in the field and was on the brink of publishing.

Leith’s outburst opens the door for other theoretical physicists to redouble their efforts and possibly ruins the success of Hawking’s latest Christmas book ‘Unified Theory, birds I’ve met at conventions and other stories’, by giving away the final chapter’s climax.

We contacted Hawking for comment, but his assistant said he was too upset to talk, although in the background this correspondent heard the famous voice saying “I’ll go full Davros on her arse, the gobby old bitch”.